Another flow of tears seemed imminent, but Tripp hurled himself into the crevasse and dammed it.  Confound him, I could see his game.  He was trying to make a story of it for his sordid ends and profit.

“Go on, Mr. Chalmers,” said he, “and tell the lady what’s the proper caper.  That’s what I told her—­you’d hand it to her straight.  Spiel up.”

I coughed, and tried to feel less wrathful toward Tripp.  I saw my duty.  Cunningly I had been inveigled, but I was securely trapped.  Tripp’s first dictum to me had been just and correct.  The young lady must be sent back to Greenburg that day.  She must be argued with, convinced, assured, instructed, ticketed, and returned without delay.  I hated Hiram and despised George; but duty must be done. Noblesse oblige and only five silver dollars are not strictly romantic compatibles, but sometimes they can be made to jibe.  It was mine to be Sir Oracle, and then pay the freight.  So I assumed an air that mingled Solomon’s with that of the general passenger agent of the Long Island Railroad.

“Miss Lowery,” said I, as impressively as I could, “life is rather a queer proposition, after all.”  There was a familiar sound to these words after I had spoken them, and I hoped Miss Lowery had never heard Mr. Cohan’s song.  “Those whom we first love we seldom wed.  Our earlier romances, tinged with the magic radiance of youth, often fail to materialize.”  The last three words sounded somewhat trite when they struck the air.  “But those fondly cherished dreams,” I went on, “may cast a pleasant afterglow on our future lives, however impracticable and vague they may have been.  But life is full of realities as well as visions and dreams.  One cannot live on memories.  May I ask, Miss Lowery, if you think you could pass a happy—­that is, a contented and harmonious life with Mr.—­er—­Dodd—­if in other ways than romantic recollections he seems to—­er—­fill the bill, as I might say?”

“Oh, Hi’s all right,” answered Miss Lowery.  “Yes, I could get along with him fine.  He’s promised me an automobile and a motor-boat.  But somehow, when it got so close to the time I was to marry him, I couldn’t help wishing—­well, just thinking about George.  Something must have happened to him or he’d have written.  On the day he left, he and me got a hammer and a chisel and cut a dime into two pieces.  I took one piece and he took the other, and we promised to be true to each other and always keep the pieces till we saw each other again.  I’ve got mine at home now in a ring-box in the top drawer of my dresser.  I guess I was silly to come up here looking for him.  I never realized what a big place it is.”

And then Tripp joined in with a little grating laugh that he had, still trying to drag in a little story or drama to earn the miserable dollar that he craved.

“Oh, the boys from the country forget a lot when they come to the city and learn something.  I guess George, maybe, is on the bum, or got roped in by some other girl, or maybe gone to the dogs on account of whiskey or the races.  You listen to Mr. Chalmers and go back home, and you’ll be all right.”