"Yes, sir."
"That's the answer," he thought to himself, wondering how much she might have overheard. "Poor Doris."
He thought of her already as some one distantly removed, amazed to realize how quickly with the snapping of the artificial bond their true relationship had readjusted itself. He thought of her only with a great wonder, recognizing now all the possibilities which had lain in her for good, saddened, and shuddering in his young imagination at the price she had elected to pay.
He turned the corner with a last look at the turreted and gabled roof of the great Drake mansion, faint unreal shadows against the starlit sky, as though, in his newly acquired knowledge of the tremendous catastrophe impending, it lay against the crowded silhouette of the city like a thing of dreams to vanish with the awakening reality.
Before the next month was over, Doris had married young Boskirk—a quiet country wedding whose simplicity excited much comment. Before another fortnight the market, which had been slowly receding before the rising wrath of a great financial panic, broke violently.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE LETTER TO PATSIE
Two days after the breaking of his engagement to Doris, Bojo wrote to Patsie. His letter—the first he had written her—he was two days in composing, tearing up several drafts. He was afraid to say too much, and to discuss trivial matters seemed to him insincere. Finally he sent this letter:
Dear Drina: