He called up all his self-possession, and did the best he could, but he seized the first opportunity to get away where he could think.  Once outside the house, he hailed a cab, told the driver to jog around for an hour or two, and then land him at the ——­ Hotel.  Once started, he settled back and began to cross-question himself, and to moralize over the situation.

“I have seen prettier girls than this one, seen them in Ohio, in Texas, in Virginia City, and they never gave me an extra heart-beat.  What is the matter with me now?  When that girl smiled up in my face, welcomed me as her brother’s friend, and told me she was glad I had come with him, all the clutches broke off my cage, and I thought I would in a moment bring up in the sump below the 1,700 foot level, smashed so they would have to sew the pieces up in canvas to bring me to the surface.  It is a clear case that I am gone, and what the mischief am I going to do?  Suppose I brace up and try to win her, and fail, then I shall be done for sure enough.  The old world so far has had no particular attractions for me, and were I to ask her to look at me, and she, like a sensible woman that she is, should first look surprised at my assurance, and then respectfully decline, what would there be left for me?  Suppose again, I could fool her into accepting, then what?  I, a rough Nevada miner, linked for life with a London fairy—­beauty and the beast—­what would I do with her?  In this babel, what could I do?  What could she do on the old Jasper farm on the hill?  I have it.  I won’t see her again.  I will go and pack my grip, tell Jack I have received a cable which takes me home, and I will leave to-morrow.

“But then I could not go as I came.  Those steady brown eyes would follow me; when the sunlight would turn its glint on gold and purple clouds, her chestnut curls would be sure to flash before my eyes, and then there would be a voice crying to me ceaselessly:  ’You who prided yourself on being brave enough to do any needed thing, you on the first real trial lowered your flag and fled in a panic.  A nice fix I have got myself into.  All my life, through all my dare-devil days, on the ranges in Texas, down amid the swelling clay of the Comstock, everywhere, my soul has been equal to the occasion, and I have been able to acquit myself in a way not to attract attention to my deficiencies.  But now my heart has gone back on me; a pair of eyes have confused my vision, and a little hand has knocked me out on the first round.  I am in a deuce of a fix, surely.”  So he rattled on to himself.

The driver was a garrulous whip.  From time to time he had been calling down to Sedgwick the names of famous points of interest along the route, which had been unheeded by the absorbed occupant of the cab.  Finally the driver explained that a certain structure was Westminster Abbey.

“And what is Westminster Abbey?”

“It is where kings and queens and great soldiers and scholars are buried,” said cabbie.