Then all at once the innocent pleasures ceased.  They ceased just as Flossie’s palpitating heart told her that she was really making an impression on this singularly unimpressionable young man.  She knew it by the sudden softening of his voice as he spoke to her, by the curious brilliant dilation of his eyes as they followed her about the room.  For after much easy practice on Mr. Spinks she knew precisely by what movements and what glances she could best produce these interesting effects.  And yet nothing could be farther from Flossie’s fancy than flirtation.  The little clerk was nothing if not practical, even under the tender impulse of her dream.

Flossie was determined that whatever else she failed in she would not fail in her woman’s trade.  She would have considered herself disgraced by such bankruptcy.  Not that she feared it.  Nature had started her with a sufficient capital of fascination, and at Mrs. Downey’s she had, so to speak, established a connection.  And now it seemed there had come a period of depression.  It still rained tickets, more tickets than ever, but there was no Mr. Rickman to escort her to the concert or the play; Mr. Rickman always had another engagement, never specified.  No Mr. Rickman to take her into the suburbs on a Sunday; Mr. Rickman was off, goodness knew where, scouring the country on his bicycle.  No Mr. Rickman to talk to her at dinner; Mr. Rickman took all his meals in his own room now.  For these and all other delinquencies his invariable excuse was that he was busy; and Flossie, mind you, was sharp enough to see through that.

No.  Mr. Rickman had changed, suddenly, unaccountably, without a moment’s warning.  First of all, the other boarders noticed that he had become most frightfully irritable in his temper.  He had not been over polite to any of them lately, but to her he was insufferably rude, most ungentlemanly, she called it.  He would pretend not to see her if by any chance she looked his way, not to hear her if by any chance she spoke to him.  Once (they were quite alone) he had broken off in the middle of an exciting conversation and rushed out of the room, out of the house.  She saw him over the balcony railings, walking up and down the street like a lunatic, with his hands thrust down into his pockets and no hat on.  And he was not only ungentlemanly but positively unkind.  If they met on the stairs (somehow they did this very often) he would draw himself up flat against the wall as if he was afraid of the frill of her dress touching him.  If she came into the drawing-room he would walk out of it; or if he stayed, it was only to sit staring at her (poor innocent little Flossie, who was so pretty) with an ugly scowl on his face.  There were times when poor innocent little Flossie said to herself that she positively believed he hated her.  And she was so innocent that she couldn’t think what she had done to make him hate her.