“What he doesn’t want, you mean!” she said, laughing as she handed him back his pipe. “There!” and she lit a fusee. “You’ll find that all right now.”
Slowly and morosely he drew a whiff or two.
“Yes—it’s all right,” he admitted. “But look at what you have cast away in the grate! Enough for a half refill!”
“And whose fault?” she queried. “Who over-filled the bowl?”
He was silent a minute or two.
“I suppose I did,” he admitted after a while. “My own cup—the cup of bitterness,—was over-filled and unconsciously I matched my pipe with it. Ah, you may laugh!—but that’s a fact!” He paused again,—then resumed: “And though you’re not a war widow you still are resolved to play the part of one—that is to say, you’ll remain unmarried—”
“Till I know the real truth,” she interposed gently. “Till I am sure Jack is no longer in this world! You see”—she hesitated, then went on—“Jack was—is—very fond of me—and I—I was not fond of him a bit till you came!”
The Philosopher drew his pipe from his mouth and stared at her, amazed.
“Till I came!” he echoed. “What in the name of all the gods and goddesses did I do to make you fond of him?”
A pretty rose-colour flushed her cheeks, and she smiled; then she went on steadily: