"Seeing it a second time has spoiled it for me," Tom said. "I took Miss Davis last week and we both enjoyed it very much."
Belle's stony silence at last penetrated Tom's understanding.
"There's no reason why I shouldn't take another girl to the theatre," he explained, "just because I happen to be engaged to you. It isn't announced yet, and won't be until you are willing. And you know it doesn't change my regard for you in the least to go with any one else. You are welcome to the same freedom."
A great light broke in upon Belle. The next time he called she had gone to play tennis with a Yale man. He saw them laughing and chatting a little way down the street, and the owner of the blue sweater was carrying her racket. Tom was angry, for the Yale man was an insufferable cad, and she had no business to go with him. He would speak to her about it.
On the way home, he wisely decided to say nothing about it. Perhaps Belle wasn't as fully accustomed to being guided by reason as he was, though she was an unusually sensible girl. He must be gentle with her at first; she would grow by degrees.
Acting on this impulse, he took his cherished copy of Spencer's Ethics and presented it to her.
"You'll like this," he said, "after you have got into it, and it will help you amazingly about reasoning."
A well-developed white arm threw the Spencer vigorously against the side of the house. Elliott was surprised, for a woman like this was utterly outside the pale of his experience. Perhaps she didn't feel well. He put his arm around her.
"What is it, Belle?" he asked anxiously.