“Ah, Dr. Camperdown, is it you?” she said. “You know that I do not love affliction in any shape. Remember how I grieved over my cold.”
“You’re on the high road to something worse than a cold now,” he said. “Have you no thicker mantle than that; no warm bonnet?”
“I wear neither mantles nor bonnets,” she replied, pressing her hands into two tiny pockets at the sides of her jacket and looking up smilingly at him. “And I was sufficiently warm in this gown in Scotland.”
“Old Scotland isn’t New Scotland,” he grumbled. “They have high winds there, high enough to take the slates off the roofs, but not piercing enough to lay your heart open, as they do here. You didn’t look out to see what sort of a day it was before you left the house; come now, did you?”
“Possibly I did not,” said Vivienne.
“You didn’t,” he said; “I know you didn’t. Come, let us walk on briskly, lest you take cold. When are you going to cease being obdurate? You needn’t stare at me, ma’m’selle, I’m not afraid of your black eyes. Look here, I’ve something to show you,” and he paused on a street corner and drew out several pieces of paper.
The first one was a ridiculous caricature of Stanton Armour standing with his hands wildly clutched in his hair, a frantic expression on his face, which was upturned to the sky.
“He’s grappling with the biggest worry of his life here,” said her companion, laying his finger on the sketch. “He thought he’d had every trouble in the world, but he hadn’t.”
Vivienne looked at him inquiringly.
“He hadn’t fulfilled his destiny by falling in love. That every man ought to marry he thought was a pernicious doctrine.”