"Not a bit."
She smiled, awry, but withal, relieved. "What a bear you are! Isn't that your phone ringing?"
"Let it ring. This isn't office hours."
"A hint for me? Having proposed and been rejected, I'm off." She brushed his cheek again. "Old boy," she said, "it is going to be tough going for you. Worse than for any of us. Good-bye."
Concentration upon his work being dissipated by this disturbing visit, Osterhout threw himself on the settee and dropped out of the world into a chasm of dark musings. If Mona had ever really cared for him, he mused—if he had been her lover—might he have been her lover, as she had hinted?—had she lovers? Or were the other men merely playthings of her wayward moods, of her craving for excitement, for adulation, for the sunlit warmth of being loved? At least he had not been a plaything; her regard for and trust in him were true and sincere. Better these, perhaps, than the turmoil and uncertainty of—— Yet, that temptation that she had held out to him; was it just an instance of her wickeder bent of coquetry?... Or could he have made her care?... Damn that telephone!
He roused himself with a wrench and went into the next room where the intrusive mechanism was thrilling. Long-distance had been trying to get him.... Wait a moment.... A man's voice, low, eager and strained came to his ear over the wire.
"Dr. Osterhout?"
"Yes."
"Can you come to Trenton immediately? By the next train?"
"Who is speaking?"