“Yes. It's not to be known just yet, Wallie.”
“He's a good fellow,” he said, after rather a long silence. “Not that that makes it easier,” he added with a twisted smile. Then, boyishly and unexpectedly he said, “Oh, my God!”
He sat down, and when the dog came and placed a head on his knee he patted it absently. He wanted to go, but he had a queer feeling that when he went he went for good.
“I've cared for you for years,” he said. “I've been a poor lot, but I'd have been a good bit worse, except for you.”
And again:
“Only last night I made up my mind that if you'd have me, I'd make something out of myself. I suppose a man's pretty weak when he puts a responsibility like that on a girl.”
She yearned over him, rather. She made little tentative overtures of friendship and affection. But he scarcely seemed to hear them, wrapped as he was in the selfish absorption of his disappointment. When she heard the postman outside and went to the door for the mail, she thought he had not noticed her going. But when she returned he was watching her with jealous, almost tragic eyes.
“I suppose you hear from him by every mail.”
“There has been nothing to-day.”
Something in her voice or her face made him look at her closely.