"Well, you've got to stop spoiling me by coming here every day. It's bad for me; the doctor says so. I won't have it."
"Are you going to close the house to me?" retorted Pat saucily. "You'll have to hire a guard. Go on, swear, Jimmie."
"Oh, you go to the devil!" said the invalid, laughing. "If Princeton loses to-day——"
But Princeton won and Pat was saved from the undying remorse which should (but probably would not) have consumed her spirit had Standish "fallen down" and involved his team in defeat.
He came back the following week-end, a hero of the first calibre, and undertook to ignore Pat at the Saturday dance at which he was unofficial guest of honour. It would have been a more successful attempt if his eyes had not constantly strayed from whatever partner he was with, to follow Pat's pliant and swaying form in the arms of some happier man. On the morrow his stern resolution, already weakened, was totally melted by a talk which he had with T. Jameson James, who had sent for him ostensibly to ask about the game.
For a front-page newspaper hero he was amazingly humble when he called up Pat to ask if he might come and see her. Pat, her heart swelling with pride and not without a flutter of other emotions, said that he might if he would apologise properly. Mr. Standish did apologise properly and handsomely, and, by the time the apology was concluded, Pat was mildly astonished at finding herself in his arms being fervently kissed and returning the kisses with no less fervour. She was further surprised to find, when he bade her good-night, that she was engaged to him.
But the really astounding feature of the whole matter came when she awoke the next morning to a sense of the prevailing luminosity of the world and the conviction that she was thrillingly in love. She had thought that she was through with all that. For a long time, anyway.