So once more he stifled the impulse to resign his post, and the meeting adjourned without further incident.  As he walked home, he was conscious of a disagreeable foreboding of something in the future which he would like to avoid.  Bringing his mind to bear upon it, it resolved itself into nothing more formidable than the coming interview with Miss Matchin.  It would certainly be unpleasant to tell her that her hopes were frustrated, when she had seemed so confident.  At this thought, he felt the awakening of a sense of protectorship; she had trusted in him; he ought to do something for her, if for nothing else, to show that he was not dependent upon those ostrogoths.  But what could be done for such a girl, so pretty, so uncultivated, so vulgarly fantastic?  Above all, what could be done for her by a young and unmarried man?  Providence and society have made it very hard for single men to show kindness to single women in any way but one.

At his door he found Sam Sleeny with a kit of tools; he had just rung the bell.  He turned, as Farnham mounted the steps, and said: 

“I come from Matchin’s—­something about the greenhouse.”

“Yes,” answered Farnham.  “The gardener is over yonder at the corner of the lawn.  He will tell you what is to be done.”

Sam walked away in the direction indicated, and Farnham went into the house.  Some letters were lying on the table in the library.  He had just begun to read them when Budsey entered and announced: 

“That young person.”

Maud came in flushed with the fresh air and rapid walking.  Farnham saw that she wore no glasses, and she gained more by that fact in his good-will than even by the brilliancy of her fine eyes which seemed to exult in their liberation.  She began with nervous haste: 

“I knew you had a meeting to-day, and I could not wait.  I might as well own up that I followed you home.”

Farnham handed her a chair and took her hand with a kindly earnestness, saying,

“I am very glad to see you.”

“Yes, yes,” she continued; “but have you any good news for me?”

The anxious eagerness which spoke in her sparkling eyes and open lips touched Farnham to the heart.  “I am sorry I have not.  The board appointed another person.”

The tears sprang to her eyes.

“I really expected it.  I hoped you would interest yourself.”

“I did all I possibly could,” said Farnham.  “I have never tried so hard for anybody before, but a majority were already pledged to the other applicant.”

She seemed so dejected and hopeless that Farnham, forgetting for a moment how hard it is for a young man to assist a young woman, said two or three fatal words, “We must try something else.”

The pronoun sounded ominous to him as soon as he had uttered it.  But it acted like magic upon Maud.  She lifted a bright glance through her tears and said, like a happy child to whom a new game has been proposed, “What shall we try?”