She had come to New York to get away from him.  When she entered the train she had flung him out of the window.  “I will not think of him again,” she had said to herself.  But—­Joshua Craig’s was not the sort of personality that can be banished by an edict of will.  She could think angrily of him, or disdainfully, or coldly, or pityingly—­but think she must.  And think she did.  She told herself she despised him; and there came no echoing protest or denial from anywhere within her.  She said she was done with him forever, and well done; her own answer to herself there was, that while she was probably the better off for having got out of the engagement, still it must be conceded that socially the manner of her getting out meant scandal, gossip, laughter at her.  Her cheeks burned as her soul flamed.

“The vulgar boor!” she muttered.

Was ever woman so disgraced, and so unjustly?  What had the gods against her, that they had thus abased her?  How Washington would jeer!  How her friends would sneer!  What hope was there now of her ever getting a husband?  She would be an object of pity and of scorn.  It would take more courage than any of the men of her set had, to marry a woman rejected by such a creature—­and in such circumstances!

“He has made everybody think I sought him.  Now, he’ll tell everybody that he had to break it off—­that he broke it off!”

She ground her teeth; she clenched her hands; she wept and moaned in the loneliness of her bed.  She hated Craig; she hated the whole world; she loathed herself.  And all the time she had to keep up appearances—­for she had not dared tell her grandmother—­had to listen while the old lady discussed the marriage as an event of the not remote future.

Why had she not told her grandmother?  Lack of courage; hope that something would happen to reveal the truth without her telling.  Hope that something would happen?  No, fear.  She did not dare look at the newspapers.  But, whatever her reason, it was not any idea that possibly the engagement might be resumed.  No, not that.  “Horrible as I feel,” thought she, “I am better off than in those weeks when that man was whirling me from one nightmare to another.  The peace of desolation is better than that torture of doubt and repulsion.  Whatever was I thinking of to engage myself to such a man? to think seriously of passing my life with him?  Poor fool that I was, to rail against monotony, to sigh for sensations!  Well, I have got them.”

Day and night, almost without ceasing, her thoughts had boiled and bubbled on and on, like a geyser ever struggling for outlet and ever falling vainly back upon itself.

Now—­here he was, greeting her at the elevator car, smiling and confident, as if nothing had happened.  She did not deign even to stare at him, but, with eyes that seemed to be simply looking without seeing any especial object, she walked straight on.  “I’m in luck,” cried he, beside her.  “I had only been walking up and down there by the elevators about twenty minutes.”