CHAPTER VII
SENTENCE OF BANISHMENT CONFIRMED WITH COSTS
I went to bed with my natural pleasure in the unexpected surfeited into a baffled irritation. I was the more annoyed when the morning brought no answer to my note; nor did the arrival of Doctor Reid about the middle of the forenoon tend to improve my state of mind. I found him fidgeting on the veranda, winding his watch and frowning at the furniture.
"Good morning, Mr. Crosby, good morning," he began. "I came down to have a few minutes' talk with you, but," he looked again at his watch, "I'm on my way down to my office and I find I'm a little late. Would it trouble you too much to walk along with me? Sorry to ask you, but I'm late already."
I got my hat, and we hurried out into the glaring sunshine. Reid gave the impression, I discovered, of being a much faster walker than he actually was; I had no difficulty in keeping up with him. Something of the same quality was noticeable in his conversation.
"Beautiful morning. I always like to get in a little exercise before work. Beautiful morning for a walk. Fine. Fine. Now about that note of yours. No reason at all for your coming back here, you know. Acquaintance must be entirely broken off. No excuse whatever for going on with it. Impossible. Perfectly impossible."
I bristled at once. "Is that a message from Miss Tabor or an objection on the part of the family? I'd like to understand this."
"By my—Miss Tabor's authority, of course. Certainly. She regrets the necessity you impose on her of telling you that she can't receive your call. Maid told you yesterday she was not at home. Civil answer. No occasion for carrying the matter any further. Nothing more to be said. Nothing." He looked at his watch again and kicked the head off a feathery dandelion.
"Mr. Tabor told me," I said, made deliberate by his jerkiness, "that I was not a fit acquaintance for his family. That was absurd, and by this time he knows it. If I'm forbidden to call, that settles the matter; but there's got to be some sensible reason."