"My dear girl, you might just as well ask me how long the war's going on! Perhaps he won't write at all."
"What d'you mean?"
Loring sank lower into his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"I've been trying to think how I should feel in his place," he said. "If he was simply infatuated about you, he'd go on believing in you until you'd married some one else. On the other hand, he's ignorant enough of women still to idealize them; and there's no bitterness like the bitterness of your disappointed idealist. He may try to cut the whole thing out of his life; he may tear your letter up unread, he may read it and throw it in the fire without answering it.... What are you going to do then, Babs?"
"I belong to him until he throws me aside," she answered. "On my honour and oath——"
"I wish you weren't quite so ready with your extravagant oaths," he interrupted. "You'll get into trouble one day. Jephthah took a similar vow and lived to regret it.... Well, Babs, if there's anything I can do to straighten things out, let me know."
He got up and prepared to go. Barbara sat with her hands pressed between her knees and her head bent.
"I must wait," she whispered. "You go, Jim; I'd sooner be alone. You go! I'll—just wait."
Loring looked at her for a moment and then went downstairs. He could have sworn that she could see her own drooping head and tired eyes in a mental looking-glass and was enjoying her doubt and misery; as likely as not, she would describe it to Jack, if they met. "Jim went away. I said, 'You go. I must wait.' And I waited...." A little of Jephthah's daughter, the Lady of Shalott, Monna Vanna and Sarah Curran; tragic pathos, tragic constancy, tragic hopelessness. By giving her the cue of Jephthah's daughter, he had helped to destroy the illusion of sincerity....