"Is it The Han't that Walks or The Browning of the Overdone Biscuit that has lowered your spirits?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," she said.
"Neither do I," said he.
There they were, he, overcoat still on and hat in hand, and she sitting there and looking up at him but still enwrapped in a more or less emotional feverishness contracted from the volume in his hand. Any purely objective onlooker would have required no announcement of the approaching "circus."
The girl made an effort to recover command of herself. "Leave your hat and overcoat with the maid," she said, "and come and sit here in the window and look at the lake, while I read to you the beautiful ending of the story I have just finished."
"I will stay," Bryant declared; "I was going to ask you to go with me to the park and idle among the chrysanthemums, but this will be better." And he seated himself near the window. "May I be allowed to look at you, instead of following your advice to the letter and keeping my eyes upon the cold, gray lake water outside?" he continued. "No matter what I hear, I shall be content if I can see you."
Miss Selwyn flushed a little, but laughed good-humoredly.
Here the purely objective looker-on afore-mentioned might murmur over the foolhardiness of man when he meets, unawares and all uncomprehendingly, one of the bewildering moods of an impressionable sweetheart. The contented male creature rushed blindly to his fate.
"Before you begin, dear, tell me; tell me it is not Tolstoi or Ibsen you are going to read, nor yet George Meredith or Sarah Grand!"
At the last reference Miss Selwyn's eyes began to flash dangerously.