Mrs. Hutchins went out first.

“The first thing I’d do if I owned this place, I’d get rid of that red-haired girl,” she snapped to Mr. Pierce.  “If you want to know why there are fewer guests here every year, I’ll tell you.  She’s the reason!” Then she flounced out with her head up.

(That was pure piffle.  The real reason, as every thinking person knows, is Christian Science.  It’s cheaper and more handy.  And now that it isn’t heresy to say it, the spring being floored over, I reckon that most mineral springs cure by suggestion.  Also, of course, if a man’s drinking four gallons of lithia water a day, he’s so saturated that if he does throw in anything alcoholic or indigestible, it’s too busy swimming for its life to do any harm.)

Mr. Pierce took a quick step toward Miss Patty and looked down at her.

“About—­what happened down-stairs to-night,” he stammered, with the unhappiest face I ever saw on a man, “I—­I’ve been ready to knock my fool head off ever since.  It was a mistake—­a—­”

“My letter, please,” said Miss Patty coolly, looking back at him without a blink.

“Please don’t look like that!” he begged.  “I came in suddenly out of the darkness, and you—­”

“My letter, please!” she said again, raising her eyebrows.

He gave up trying then.  He held out the letter and she took it and went out with her head up and scorn in the very way she trailed her skirt over the door-sill.  But I’m no fool; it didn’t need the way he touched the door-knob where she had been holding it, when he closed the door after her, to tell me what ailed him.

He was crazy about her from the minute he saw her, and he hadn’t a change of linen or a cent to his name.  And she, as you might say, on the ragged edge of royalty, with queens and princes sending her stomachers and tiaras until she’d hardly need clothes!  Well, a cat may look at a king.

He went over to the fireplace, where I was putting his coffee to keep it hot, and looked down at me.

“I’ve a suspicion, Minnie,” he said, “that, to use a vulgar expression, I’ve bitten off more than I can chew in this little undertaking, and that I’m in imminent danger of choking to death.  Do you know anybody, a friend of Miss er—­Jennings, named Dorothy?”

“She’s got a younger sister of that name,” I said, with a sort of chill going over me.  “She’s in boarding-school now.”

“Oh, no, she’s not!” he remarked, picking up the coffee-pot.  “It seems that I met her on the train somewhere or other the day before yesterday, and ran off with her and married her!”

I sat back on the rug speechless.

“You should have warned me, Minnie,” he went on, growing more cheerful over his chicken and coffee.  “I came up here to-night, the proud possessor of a bunch of keys, a patent folding cork-screw and a pocket, automobile road map.  Inside two hours I have a sanatorium and a wife.  At this rate, Minnie, before morning I may reasonably hope to have a family.”