It was becoming more and more evident to him that he was not advancing in the sentimental siege beyond the first parallel thrown up so skilfully on the last night of the westward journey.  It was not that Elinor was lacking in loyalty or in acquiescence; she scrupulously gave him both as an accepted suitor.  But though he could not put his finger upon the precise thing said or done which marked the loosening of his hold, he knew he was receding rather than advancing.

Now to a man of expedients the interposition of an obstacle suggests only ways and means for overcoming it.  Ormsby had certain clear-cut convictions touching the subjugation of women, and as his stout heart gave him resolution he lived up to them.  When he spoke again it was of the matter which concerned him most deeply; and his plea was a gentle repetition of many others in the same strain.

“Elinor, I have waited patiently for a long time, and I’ll go on doing it, if that is what will come the nearest to pleasing you.  But it would be a prodigious comfort if I might be counting the days or the weeks.  Are you still finding it impossible to set the limit?”

She nodded slowly, and he took the next step like a man feeling his way in the dark.

“That is as large an answer as you have ever given me, I think.  Is there any speakable reason?”

“You know the reason,” she said, looking away from him.

“I am not sure that I do.  Is it because the moneygods have been unpropitious—­because these robber barons have looted your railroad?”

“No; that is only part of it—­the smallest part.”

“I hoped so:  if you have too little, I have a good bit too much.  But that corners it in a way to make me sorry.  I am not keeping my promise to win what you weren’t able to give me at first.”

“Please don’t put it that way.  If there be any fault, it is mine.  You have left nothing undone.”

The man of expedients ran over his cards reflectively and decided that the moment for playing his long suit was fully come.

“Your goodness of heart excuses me where I am to blame,” he qualified.  “I am coming to believe that I have defeated my own cause.”

“By being too good to me?” she suggested.

“No; by running where I should have been content to walk; by shackling you with a promise, and so in a certain sense becoming your jailer.  That is putting it rather clumsily, but isn’t it true?”

“I had never thought of it in that light,” she said unresponsively.

“You wouldn’t, naturally.  But the fact remains.  It has wrenched your point of view hopelessly aside, don’t you think?  I have seen it and felt it all along, but I haven’t had the courage of my convictions.”

“In what way?” she asked.

“In the only way the thing can be stood squarely upon its feet.  It’s hard—­desperately hard; and hardest of all for a man of my peculiar build.  I am no longer what you would call a young man, Elinor, and I have never learned to turn back and begin all over again with any show of heartiness.  They used to say of me in the Yacht Club that if I gained a half-length in a race, I’d hold it if it took the sticks out of my boat.”