“Opportunity!” ejaculated Mell. “You manage somehow to call upon me pretty often elsewhere!”
“Not at a visitable hour.”
“Were I a man and wanted to see a girl, I’d make my opportunity!”
She laughed, derisively—there is something very undiverting in such a laugh.
“Would you, Mell? No, you would not. You would do like the rest of mankind; submit as best you could to the inflexible logic of events and do the best you could under the circumstances.”
“Is a cornfield the best you can do under the circumstances?”
“It is Mell—the very best. Now, my sweet Mell, I am going to be serious—really serious—dreadfully in earnest. I acknowledge that you have some cause to find fault with me. There are things ‘disjoint and out of frame’ in my wooing, which I cannot explain to you at this time. Bear with them, bear with me for a little—there’s a dear girl—and when I come back—”
“You are going away! Where, Jerome? When?”
“Only a run over to Cragmore, for a week or ten days. I have friends there, who are writing for me. Another guest is coming to the Bigge House, and I rather think we shall be in each other’s way, Mell.”