“I met the ‘poor dear’ yesterday, looking very old and unhappy despite his LL. D.”
“Oh, you idiot!” she laughed. And she must like imbeciles, too, for—well, I’m not going to tell even you how I know that she’s fond of idiots.
“Why do you suppose he’s unhappy?” she asked.
“My theory is that he’s miserable because he lost—lost me.”
“I’m so glad he is!” joyously asserted the tenderest of women.
“Nevertheless,” I resumed, “it was a book I should have valued as much as you do that one in tissue paper, and you ought not to have burned it.”
“I am very sorry I did, Donald, since you would really have liked it,” she said, wistfully and sorrowfully. “I should have thought of your feelings, and not of mine.”
This is a mood I cannot withstand. “Dear heart,” I responded, “I have you, and all the books in the world are not worth a breath in comparison. What favor do you want me to do?”
“To write a sort of last chapter—an ending, you know—telling about—about the rest.”
“Have you forgotten it?”