my way back, with an indistinct sense of having fought with a small tornado, and wondering whether I had won a minor victory[Pg 82] or sealed an irrevocable defeat. True, I had gained the point of receiving my dismissal in person, but Reid's very readiness of acquiescence indicated the completeness of his confidence in my discomfiture. I spent the interim planning things to say which I knew I should miserably forget when the time came to say them; and I went to keep my appointment with Miss Tabor feeling illogically like a malefactor going up for trial, and remembering with sickly lucidity every word of the skeptical common sense that I had been flouting from the first.

[Pg 82]

She was sitting near the great Dutch fireplace, and as I crossed the room she slid her book upon the table and stood up. She did not offer me her hand, nor did she notice mine.

"How do you do, Mr. Crosby?" she said.

There was an acid formality about the meaningless little sentence that took the color out of all I had intended to say. There was no answer except that I was very well; and the hollow inanity of that under the circumstances left me standing speechless, defeated before the beginning. She was standing very straight, and her eyes looked beyond me blankly, as they had on the Ainslies' veranda. Now she brought them to mine for an instant, and[Pg 83] motioned me to a chair that faced hers at a little distance as if it had been placed there beforehand.

[Pg 83]

"We had better sit down," she said. "I want to talk quietly to you, Mr. Crosby."

"Your brother told me that this would be a good time for me to come," said I unmeaningly.

For a long time she was silent, turning over and over with reflective fingers a little ivory paper cutter. The handle of it was carved to represent a fish with its mouth open grasping the blade. Somewhere in the room a clock ticked twice to every three of my heart-beats. Finally she looked up decisively.

"You wanted to see me, Mr. Crosby. I suppose it is about something in particular. Please tell me what it is."

"You must know as well as I do," I answered, trying to steady my tone. "I have been told that my attempt to call is an intrusion, and that you do not wish to see me again. I preferred to be told that by you, yourself."

Her eyes rested steadily upon 

 Prev. P 42/169 next