“And don’t you know,” he answered, “that you are most pleasing when you do forget it?  But I am to infer that you wouldn’t give me the rocking-chair if you didn’t forget that you were working for me?”

“You must infer nothing,” she said.  “But am I most pleasing when I forget?  Then I will not remember again.  It is a woman’s duty to be pleasing; and her advantage, too, for when she ceases to please she loses many of her privileges.”

DeGolyer went to the window, took the rose, brought it to her and said:  “Put this in your hair.”

She looked up as she took the rose; their eyes met and for a moment they lived in the promise of a delirious bliss.  She looked down as she was putting the flower in her hair.  He spoke an idle word that meant more than old Wisdom’s speech, and she answered with a laugh that was nearly a sob.  He thirsted to take her in his arms, to tell her of his love, but his time was not yet come—­he was still Henry Witherspoon.

“How have you spent the day?” she asked.

“I’m thinking of to-morrow.”

“And will to-morrow be so important?”

“Yes, the most important day of my life.”

“Oh, tell me about it.”

“I will to-morrow.”

“Well, I suppose I shall have to wait, but I wish you would tell me just a little bit of it.”

“To tell a little would be to tell all.  The story is not yet complete.”

“Oh, is it a story?  And is it one that you are writing?”

“No, one that I am living.  It is a strange tale.”

“I know it must be interesting, but what has to-morrow to do with it?”

“It will be completed then.”

“I don’t understand you; I never did.  I’ve often thought you the saddest man I have ever seen, and I’ve wondered why.  You ought not to be sad—­fortune is surely a friend of yours.  You live in a grand house, and your father is a power in this great community.  All the advantages of this life are within your reach; and if you can find cause to be sad, what must be the condition of people who have to struggle in order to live!”

“The summing-up of what you say means that I ought to be thankful.”

“Yes, you were stolen, it is true, but you were restored, and therefore, by contrast and out of gratitude, you should be happier than if you had never been taken away.”

“All that is true so far as it is true,” he replied.  “And let me say that I’m not so sad as you suppose.  Do you care if I smoke here?”

“Not at all.”

He lighted a cigar and sat smoking in silence.  A boy shouted in the hall, a dog barked, and a cat sprang up from a doze under a table, looked toward the door, gave himself a humping stretch, and then lay down again.

Whenever DeGolyer looked at the girl, a new expression, the rosy tinge of a strange confusion, flew to her countenance.  His talk evoked a self-possessed reply, but over his silence an embarrassment was brooding.  She seemed to be in fear of something that sweetly she expected.