She had discarded her roses with a shudder; cap, goggles, duster, lay in her lap.  If the maid came before Brown returned she’d flee.  If Brown came back before the maid arrived she’d tell him plainly what she had decided on, thank him, tell him kindly but with decision that, considering the incredible circumstances of their encounter, she must decline to encourage any hope he might entertain of ever again seeing her.

At this stern resolve her heart, being an automatic and independent affair, refused to approve, and began an unpleasantly irregular series of beats which annoyed her.

“It is true,” she admitted to herself, “that he is a gentleman, and I can scarcely be rude enough, after what he has done for me, to leave him without any explanation at all....  His clothes are ruined.  I must remember that.”

Her heart seemed to approve such sentiments, and it beat more regularly as she seated herself at a desk, found in it a sheet of notepaper and a pencil, and wrote rapidly: 

“Dear Mr. Brown:

“If my maid comes before you do I am going.  I can’t help it.  The maid will stay to look after Clarence until I can return with some of the family.  I don’t mean to be rude, but I simply cannot stand what you told me about our—­about what you told me....  I’m sorry you tore your clothes.

“Please believe my flight has nothing to do with you personally or your conduct, which was perfectly (’charming’ scratched out) proper.  It is only that to be suddenly told that one is predestined to (’marry’ scratched out) become intimately acquainted (all this scratched out and a new line begun).

“It is unendurable for a girl to think that there is no freedom of choice in life left her—­to be forced, by what you say are occult currents, into—­friendship—­with a perfectly strange man at the other end.  So I don’t think we had better ever again attempt to find anybody to present us to each other.  This doesn’t sound right, but you will surely understand.

“Please do not misjudge me.  I must appear to you uncivil, ungrateful, and childish—­but I am, somehow, a little frightened.  I know you are perfectly nice—­but all that has happened is almost, in a way, terrifying to me.  Not that I am cowardly; but you must understand.  You will—­won’t you?....  But what is the use of my asking you, as I shall never see you again.

“So I am only going to thank you, and say (’with all my heart’ crossed out) very cordially, that you have been most kind, most generous and considerate—­most—­most——­”

* * * * *

Her pencil faltered; she looked into space, and the image of Beekman Brown, pleasant-eyed, attractive, floated unbidden out of vacancy and looked at her.

She stared back at the vision curiously, more curiously as her mind evoked the agreeable details of his features, resting there, chin on the back of her hand, from which, presently, the pencil fell unheeded.