Forgetting the Clock
"I kept going away earlier and earlier, and finally it was so much earlier that I went before I had come. If I can't make a girl forget the clock, I have no call to waste my valuable time on her, have I?"
Assuming a frown with difficulty, Miss Wynne consulted her watch. "Why, it's only half-past eleven," she exclaimed; "I thought it was much later."
"You darling," said the man, irrelevantly. "What are you reading?" Before she could stop him, he had picked up the book and nearly choked in a burst of unseemly merriment.
"Upon my word," he said, when he could speak. "A cook book! A classmate of mine used to indulge himself in floral catalogues when he wanted to rest his mind with light literature, but I never heard of a cook book as among the 'books for Summer reading' that the booksellers advertise."
"Why not?" retorted Eloise, quickly.
"No real reason. Lots of worse things are printed and sold by thousands, but, someway, I can't seem to reconcile you—and your glorious voice—with a cook-book."
"Allan Conrad," said Miss Wynne, with affected sternness, "if you hadn't studied medicine, would you be practising it now?"
"No," admitted Allan; "not with the laws as they are in this State."