In his anxiety he rose from his seat and began to pace the room, holding the letter tightly in his hand. He paused before the mantelshelf and regarded himself in the glass.
"Well, upon my word, I never thought that I should come to this--I never did. Here's all the papers, and goodness knows what news from Paris, and I haven't looked at one, and don't want to neither, that's the truth. If she's only written to say she loves me, whether I want her to or don't, I--I'd give a thousand pounds. Here goes! I can't stand fooling here all day! Goodness knows what the state of things in the City may be."
He was about to tear the envelope open with his finger. He changed his mind.
"She may have written something on the flap. I'd better use a knife."
He used a knife. To see him use it, opening an envelope might have been the most delicate operation on earth.
"Now for it!" He heaved the greatest sigh of all. "By George, if it's only to confess her love!"
He seated himself at the table with the letter spread out in front of him. It might have been as fragile as it was priceless to observe the ginger way in which he opened it and spread it out. Then he arrayed himself for its perusal with as much precision as though it were some formal and rather complicated revelation just to hand from the gods.
"'Dear Mr. Ely' (I say! She might have said 'Dear Fred,' or even 'Frederic'! 'Dear Mr. Ely'! It's rather a stiffish way of writing to the man you're going to marry, don't you know.) 'Just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday. I have changed my mind. I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment. It is quite impossible for me to be your wife. The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead. Yours truly, Lily Truscott.'"
Mr. Ely read this note through without, in his astonishment, being in the least able to grasp its meaning.
"What--what the blazes is all this!" He ploughed through it again. "'Dear Mr. Ely' (it's evidently meant for me), 'just a line with reference to what passed between us yesterday'! (What passed between us yesterday--what's she mean? She hasn't put a date; I suppose she means my asking her to be my wife. That's a pretty good way of referring to it, anyhow.) 'I have changed my mind!' (Oh, has she? About what? It didn't strike me she had a mind to change.) 'I thought it better to let you know at the earliest possible moment'! (If she had only told me what it was she thought it better to let me know, it would have been perhaps as well. If this is a love-letter, give me the other kind of thing.) 'It is quite impossible for me to be your wife.' (What--what the blazes does she mean?) 'The fact is, I am going to marry Mr. Summers instead'!"