"Do you realize what I'm going back to? Old associations, old habits and a long, long, fight! And then there's Snorky. I've got to save him too."
"But Jack—"
"I'm not asking for anything more than just your picture, nothing more,—nothing that commits you to anything! But I do want that, I must have that! I want to rise up every morning and remember and, and I want to come back every night and know that I can face your eyes," said Skippy warming up. "I say it must be a full face, not a profile, you know."
"I haven't thaid I would," said Miss Jennie in dreadful perplexity.
"But you will."
There was a long silence.
"You will, won't you!"
"I—I will think it over," said Miss Tupper finally, remembering the terrific report which her sister had brought her via Snorky Green. "I will give you my dethition after thupper."
That evening, Skippy, excusing himself from Snorky, who was taking Margarita to a lecture on the fauna and flora of Yucatan, set out for the parsonage with a thumping heart. If the truth be told he was not altogether convinced of the durability of his attraction for Miss Jennie, but he was quite certain of one thing, if there was even a sporting chance of Snorky's adding the blonde sister to his photographic gallery in the communal room in the Kennedy House, he could never confess failure! The state of his own emotion perplexed him. When he was away, he could look on with a certain amused calm as though the whole thing were but a fascinating game. Indeed, at times he felt gorgeously, terrifically guilty, the gayest and blackest of black Lotharios. Yet no sooner had he looked into the soft velvety eyes and felt the touch of her warm fingers than he was certain, absolutely certain that his life's decision had been made, that he wanted to stand forth as a man of the strongest character, and slowly and patiently struggle upward to those heights where serenely she would wait for him.
He consumed three cigarettes—rapidly and faithfully, to make up the seven of the daily quota, mutually agreed upon; flicked the dust off his shoes with his handkerchief, tightened his belt and his tie, and, having fanned himself with his hat, found at last the courage to tread the noisy gravel and ring the bell. On his way he had built up a dozen eloquent conversations, but all memory of things tender and convincing were forgotten as he ventured over the slippery floor of the parlor and beheld at the side of Jennie a large blown-up, thin-haired male visitor in ecclesiastical black, who was introduced to him as the Rev. Percy Tuptale.