"I am afraid so" I answered, standing before our own gate. "Will you
come in for a moment?"
"Thank you, I have an engagement, good afternoon."
"Good afternoon."
He raised his hat and turned away and I passed into the house filled
with the strangest emotions I had ever known. I went straight to my
own room and threw myself into a capacious easy-chair near the fire.
The gray shadows of the early winter evening were just touching
everything around me. I was in an excited mood and for what? A new
suspicion had suddenly thrust itself in between me and a happy,
satisfying conviction which I had cherished of late. The reader will
not question whether there is one thing in life more annoying or more
discouraging than to see one's settled belief in anything suddenly
uprooted and tossed about by unexpected yet not unpleasant
circumstances. Some small whispering voice from the farthest depths of
my heart struggled to the surface now and asked me plainly and
brusquely to come to an understanding with my inner self once for all,
instead of leaning in this half-decided way, now towards one
conviction, now towards another.
"I cannot help it, Amey." What was he going to say? What did he think?
Why did he stop there? "Desperate flirtation, or earnest love-making.
I wish I knew which." Queer thing to say, that. But what a queer man
he was! What did it matter to him which it was? Did he mean to allude
to Arthur Campbell and me, or was he perhaps thinking of himself and
somebody? Why did I dismiss him summarily? If I had urged him to come
in he would have consented, and we might have talked it out.
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