He handed her the open case. She looked at the chain, spread carefully on the white satin lining. Inside the cover was fitted a card. She turned it over and read: “To my niece, Caroline. With wishes for many happy returns, and much love, from her Uncle Elisha Warren.”
She sat gazing at the card. Stephen bent down, read the inscription, and then looked up into her face.
“What?” he cried. “I believe—You’re not crying Well, I’ll be hanged! Sis, you are a fool!”
The weather that morning was fine and clear. James Pearson, standing by the window of his rooms at the boarding house, looking out at the snow-covered roofs sparkling in the sun, was miserable. When he retired the night before it was with a solemn oath to forget Caroline Warren altogether; to put her and her father and the young cad, her brother, utterly from his mind, never to be thought of again. As a preliminary step in this direction, he began, the moment his head touched the pillow, to review, for the fiftieth time, the humiliating scene in the library, to think of things he should have said, and—worse than all—to recall, word for word, the things she had said to him. In this cheerful occupation he passed hours before falling asleep. And, when he woke, it was to begin all over again.
Why—why had he been so weak as to yield to Captain Elisha’s advice? Why had he not acted like a sensible, self-respecting man, done what he knew was right, and persisted in his refusal to visit the Warrens? Why? Because he was an idiot, of course—a hopeless idiot, who had got exactly what he deserved! Which bit of philosophy did not help make his reflections less bitter.
He went down to breakfast when the bell rang, but his appetite was missing, and he replied only in monosyllables to the remarks addressed to him by his fellow boarders. Mrs. Hepton, the landlady, noticed the change.
“You not ill, Mr. Pearson, I hope?” she queried. “I do hope you haven’t got cold, sleeping with your windows wide open, as you say you do. Fresh air is a good thing, in moderation, but one should be careful. Don’t you think so, Mr. Carson?”
Mr. Carson was a thin little man, a bachelor, who occupied the smallest room on the third story. He was a clerk in a department store, and his board was generally in arrears. Therefore, when Mrs. Hepton expressed an opinion he made it a point to agree with her. In this instance, however, he merely grunted.
“I say fresh air in one’s sleeping room is a good thing in moderation. Don’t you think so, Mr. Carson?” repeated the landlady.