“Oh, no. Just shaken up a lot. He’ll be all right in a week’s time, Dr. Burke says.”
“Then Gail—I mean Miss Holden—didn’t see Gin Fizz broken?”
“No. But she’ll hear about it all right,” exclaimed Barbara enthusiastically. “My word, it was great!” And she shook his hand again.
But the day of triumph had ended in disappointment for Roderick Warfield. He slipped away, saddened and crestfallen.
“It was all for her I did it”—the thought kept hammering at his brain. “And she never even stopped to see. I suppose she’s busy now bathing the forehead of that contemptible little runt in the hospital. Stella wouldn’t have turned me down like that.”
And he found himself thinking affectionately and longingly of the little “college widow.” He hadn’t been to the post office for three days. The belated letter might have arrived at last. He would go and see at all events; and to drown thought he whistled “The Merry Widow” waltz as he grimly stalked along.
CHAPTER XIX.—A LETTER FROM THE COLLEGE WIDOW
YES, there was a letter from Stella Rain. Roderick took it eagerly from the hands of the clerk at the general delivery window. A good number of people were already crowding into the post office from the fair grounds. But he was too hungry for news to wait for quieter surroundings. So he turned to a vacant corner in the waiting room and ripped open the envelope. The letter was as follows: