“What!!!”

“Yes,” she said passionately, “everything disobedient I have done has brought lightning retribution.  I was forbidden to go into the laboratory; I disobeyed and—­you came to hang wall paper!  I—­I took a b-book—­which I had no business to take, and F-fate glues me to your horrid table and holds me fast till a man named George comes in....”

Flushed, trembling, excited, she made a quick and dramatic gesture of despair; and a ripping sound rent the silence.

“Are you pasted to that table?” faltered the young man, aghast.

“Yes, I am.  And it’s utterly impossible for you to aid me in the slightest, except by pretending to ignore it.”

“But you—­you can’t remain there!”

“I can’t help remaining here,” she said hotly, “until you go.”

“Then I’d better——­”

“No!  You shall not go!  I—­I won’t have you go away—­disappear somewhere in the city.  Certainty is dreadful enough, but it’s better than the awful suspense of knowing you are somewhere in the world, and are sure to come back sometime——­”

“But I don’t want to come back!” he exclaimed indignantly.  “Why should I wish to come back?  Have I said—­acted—­done—­looked—­Why should you imagine that I have the slightest interest in anything or in—­in—­anybody in this house?”

“Haven’t you?”

“No!...  And I cannot ignore your—­your amazing—­and intensely f-flattering fear that I have d-designs—­that I desire—­in other words, that I—­er—­have dared to cherish impossible aspirations in connection with a futile and absurd hope that one day you might possibly be induced to listen to any tentative suggestion of mine concerning a matrimonial alliance——­”

He choked and turned a dull red.

She reddened, too, but said calmly: 

“Thank you for putting it so nicely.  But it is no use.  Sooner or later you and I will be obliged to consider a situation too hopeless to admit of discussion.”

“What situation?”

“Ours.”

“I can’t see any situation—­except your being glued—­I beg your pardon!—­but I must speak truthfully.”

“So must I. Our case is too desperate for anything but plain and terrible truths.  And the truths are these:  I touched the forbidden machine and got a spark; your name is George; I’m glued here, unable to escape; you are not rude enough to go when I ask you not to....  And now—­here—­ in this room, you and I must face these facts and make up our minds....  For I simply must know what I am to expect; I can’t endure—­I couldn’t live with this hanging over me——­”

“What hanging over you?”

He sprang to his feet, waving his dinner pail around in frantic circles: 

“What is it, in Heaven’s name, that is hanging over you?”

“Over you, too!”

“Over me?”

“Certainly.  Over us both.  We are headed straight for m-marriage.”