"Not that I'm aware of," Ruth answered, looking up with a start. "I don't think she's even engaged."
"Oh, I beg pardon. I thought you meant——"
"I was only speaking generally," Ruth interrupted. "Mary Telfer, in my judgment, is a girl in a thousand—bright, cheerful, domesticated, and—and——"
"Gilt-edged?" Ralph suggested.
"Well, she will not be penniless."
That night as Ralph lay awake he recalled his conversation with Ruth, and almost heard in fancy the bright, rippling laughter of Mary Telfer; and for the first time a thought flashed across his mind which grew bigger and bigger as the days and weeks passed away.
Would it be possible to put Dorothy Hamblyn out of his heart by trying to put another in her place? Would the beauty of her face fade from his memory if he constantly looked upon another face? Would he forget her if he trained himself to think continually of someone else?
These were questions that he could not answer right off, but there might be no harm in making the experiment—at least, there might be no harm to himself, but what about Mary?
So he found himself faced by a number of questions at the same time, and for none of them could he find a satisfactory answer.
Then came an event in his life which he anticipated with a curious thrill of excitement, and that was a journey to London. He almost shrank from the enterprise at first. He had heard and read so much about London—about its bigness, its crowds, its bewildering miles of streets, its awful loneliness, its temptations and dangers, its squalor and luxury, its penury and extravagance—that he was half afraid he might be sucked up as by a mighty tide, and lost.