"Well, what did you think of it?" she asked.
"I think the performance was very creditable," he answered. "To say what I think of you would be compromising."
She laughed and went on without making any reply. He could not see her face, but something gave him the impression that her smile did not last very long after she had turned away from him.
He walked home alone through the crisp March night, breathing deeply and trying to reduce his teeming brain to a state of order and clarity. The walk from the theater home was not sufficient for this; he walked far beyond his house and all the way back again before he could think clearly enough. At last he raised his eyes to the comfortable stars and spoke a few words aloud in a low, calm voice.
"I really think," he said, "that this is IT. I really do think so ... But I must be very careful," he added, to himself; "very careful. I must take no chances—this time. Both on Madge's account and on mine."
"No," he added after a moment; "not on my account. On Madge's."
CHAPTER II
CONGREVE
Little had happened to mark the greater part of the time that had elapsed since Harry's graduation. For three years he had studied hard for his doctor's degree, and during the fourth year he had been set to teaching English literature to freshmen, which task, on the whole, he accomplished with marked success. But during the fifth year, the year in which we next see him, he was not teaching freshmen, though he was still living in New Haven, and working, according to his own accounts, like a galley slave. The events which led up to this state of things form a matter of some moment in his career.