But he was very crestfallen during the remainder of the way, and rather silent.  He wondered, that night before he went to bed, if he had been didactic to Lily Cardew.  He had aired his opinions to her at length, he knew.  He groaned as he took off his coat in his cold little room at the boarding house which lodged and fed him, both indifferently, for the sum of twelve dollars per week.

Jinx, the little hybrid dog, occupied the seat of his one comfortable chair.  He eyed the animal somberly.

“Hereafter, old man,” he said, “when I feel a spell of oratory coming on, you will have to be the audience.”  He took his dressing gown from a nail behind the door, and commenced to put it on.  Then he took it off again and wrapped the dog in it.

“I can read in bed, which you can’t,” he observed.  “Only, I can’t help thinking, with all this town to pick from, you might have chosen a fellow with two dressing gowns and two chairs.”

* * * * *

He was extremely quiet all the next day.  Miss Boyd could hear him, behind the partition with its “Please Keep Out” sign, fussing with bottles and occasionally whistling to himself.  Once it was the “Long, Long Trail,” and a moment later he appeared in his doorway, grinning.

“Sorry,” he said.  “I’ve got in the habit of thinking to the fool thing.  Won’t do it again.”

“You must be thinking hard.”

“I am,” he replied, grimly, and disappeared.  She could hear the slight unevenness of his steps as he moved about, but there was no more whistling.  Edith Boyd leaned both elbows on the top of a showcase and fell into a profound and troubled thought.  Mostly her thoughts were of Willy Cameron, but some of them were for herself.  Up dreary and sordid by-paths her mind wandered; she was facing ugly facts for the first time, and a little shudder of disgust shook her.  He wanted to meet her family.  He was a gentleman and he wanted to meet her family.  Well, he could meet them all right, and maybe he would understand then that she had never had a chance.  In all her young life no man had ever proposed letting her family look him over.  Hardly ever had they visited her at home, and when they did they seemed always glad to get away.  She had met them on street corners, and slipped back alone, fearful of every creak of the old staircase, and her mother’s querulous voice calling to her: 

“Edie, where’ve you been all this time?” And she had lied.  How she had lied!

“I’m through with all that,” she resolved.  “It wasn’t any fun anyhow.  I’m sick of hating myself.”

Some time later Willy Cameron heard the telephone ring, and taking pad and pencil started forward.  But Miss Boyd was at the telephone, conducting a personal conversation.

“No....  No, I think not....  Look here, Lou, I’ve said no twice.”

There was a rather lengthy silence while she listened.  Then:  “You might as well have it straight, Lou.  I’m through....  No, I’m not sick.  I’m just through....  I wouldn’t....  What’s the use?”