"These," said the bachelor, taking[85] them tenderly from the porter and tipping him, "are the most substantial signs of——"

[85]

"A lost head," said the widow quickly.

"Or a lost heart," added the bachelor, as they crossed the station and stepped fatuously on to—the wrong ferryboat.

[86]

[86]

VII

A Short Cut.

A Short Cut

"What ought you to do?" repeated the bachelor, laying down his cigar and regarding the widow severely. "Refuse him, of course."

"Oh, of course," agreed the widow, rubbing the envelope spasmodically with the end of her handkerchief, "but what ought I do to teach him better?"[87]

[87]

"I can't think of anything—better," replied the bachelor, charitably reaching for the violet envelope and closing it firmly with his fist.

"How about just taking the kiss—without asking for it?" inquired the widow naively, as she leaned luxuriously back among the cushions of the divan. "Wouldn't that have been better—for him, I mean?"

"Would it?" The bachelor looked the widow straight in the eye.

"Well," replied the widow weakly, toying with some fringe on a satin sofa pillow and carefully avoiding the bachelor's gaze, "he would have gotten it."

"And now he never will," rejoined the bachelor with a confidence he did not feel.

"Oh, I don't know." The widow[88] became suddenly interested in the arrangement of the fringe on the satin sofa pillow. "But it isn't the man who asks a woman for a kiss or—or anything—who gets it. It's the man who takes for granted."

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