I was just beginning to breathe freely, when Doctor Richard Geddes came over one afternoon, and, finding me in our living-room with only the Black family to keep me company, flung himself into an arm-chair, seized Sir Thomas More Black by the scruff, and pulled his whiskers and rubbed his fur the wrong way until Sir Thomas More scratched him with thoroughness.

“Get out, then, you black hellion!” growled the doctor.  Sir Thomas More got out.  He hadn’t wanted to stay in the first place.

“Shall I bind your hand for you?” I asked.  But the doctor refused.  He tapped his foot on the floor, and hemmed, and looked at me strangely.  Then: 

“Sophronisba Two, you consider me a reasonably decent sort, don’t you?”

“That goes without saying.”

“Think I’d make a woman a reasonably good husband?”

“I do,” said I, truthfully.  Whatever ailed the man?

“Good!  And I,” the doctor said, deliberately, “know that you’d make any man more than a reasonably good wife.  Should you like to be mine, Sophronisba Two?”

The jump I gave threw Potty Black off my knees.

“You’re ill, wandering in your wits, you poor man!” I was genuinely alarmed.  “Isn’t there something I can do for you, doctor?”

“There is:  you can marry me, if you want to,” replied the doctor, soberly.  “Honestly, my dear girl, I’d be kind to you.  I like and admire and respect you more than I can tell you, Sophy.”

“My dear friend,” I said, when I caught my breath, “I like, admire, and respect you, too.  But people who marry each other need something more than that.  They—­well, they need—­love.”

His shoulders twitched.

“This business of love is the devil’s own invention!” he cried.  “It’s safer and saner to like and respect people than to love them, and lots harder.  Now, what do you say to marrying me?”

“I say you had no such notion in your head the last time you and I talked together.  When did it seize you?” I demanded, suspiciously.

“I began to think about it seriously—­er—­ah—­some days ago,” he said, reddening.

“What day, to be exact?”

“Well,” said he, resentfully, “it occurred to me last Wednesday, if you want to be so all-fired sure!”

“What happened last Wednesday to make you think of asking me to marry you?”

The doctor looked at me very much as a little boy looks at a grown-up who is holding a soapy wash-cloth in one hand and an ear in the other.

“What do you want to know for?”

“Because.  I just want to know because.  Well?” He squirmed, and was silent.  “Was it because you have ceased to care for Alicia, already?” His glare answered that question.  “No?  Why, then, didn’t you ask Alicia, instead of coming to me for second choice?  Look here, Doctor Richard Geddes:  if I was not firmly and truly your friend, I should be furious, do you understand?  Or,” I added, darkly, “I might even revenge myself by taking you at your word!”