There was a light in the tower window.
"That fellow is up yet," Porter said. He had an umbrella over her, and was shielding her as best he could from the rain. "I don't like to think of him in the house."
"Why not?"
"Oh, he sees you every day. Talks to you every day. And what do you know of him? And I who've known you all my life must be content with scrappy minutes with other people around. And anyhow—I believe I'd be jealous of Satan himself, Mary."
They were under the porch now, and she drew away from him a bit, surveying him with disapproving eyes.
"You aren't like yourself to-night, Porter."
He put one hand on her shoulder and stood looking down at her. "How can I be? What am I going to do when I leave you, Mary, and face the fact that you don't care—that I'm no more to you—than that fellow up there in the—tower?"
He straightened himself, then with the madness of his earlier mood upon him, he said one thing more before he left her:
"Contrary Mary, if I weren't such a coward, and you weren't so—wonderful—I'd kiss you now—and make you—care——"