"It's come right now. I've got my deserts; that's all."

"Oh no, you haven't. What harm have you done? It's all right for you
to think small beer of yourself, and I don't see how you could think
anything else just at present. But you wait awhile. When did it happen?"

Mavering took out his watch. "One day, one hour, twenty minutes, and
fifteen seconds ago."

"Sure about the seconds? I suppose you didn't hang round a great while
afterward?"

"Well, people don't, generally," said Mavering, with scorn.

"Never tried it," said Boardman, looking critically at his fried
potatoes before venturing upon them. "If you had stayed, perhaps she
might have changed her mind," he added, as if encouraged to this hopeful
view by the result of his scrutiny.

"Where did you get your fraudulent reputation for common-sense,
Boardman?" retorted Mavering, who had followed his examination of the
potatoes with involuntary interest. "She won't change her mind; she
isn't one of that kind. But she's the one woman in this world who could
have made a man of me, Boardman."

"Is that so?" asked Boardman lightly. "Well, she is a good-looking
girl."

"She's divine!"

"What a dress that was she had on Class Day!"

"I never think what she has on. She makes everything perfect, and then
makes you forget it."

"She's got style; there's no mistake about that."

"Style!" sighed Mavering; but he attempted no exemplification.

"She's awfully graceful. What a walk she's got!"

"Oh, don't, don't, Boardman! All that's true, and all that's
nothing--nothing to her goodness. She's so good, Boardman! Well, I
give it up! She's religious. You wouldn't think that, may be; you can't
imagine a pretty girl religious. And she's all the more intoxicating
when she's serious; and when she's forgotten your whole worthless
existence she's ten thousand times more fascinating than and other girl
when she's going right for you. There's a kind of look comes into her
eyes--kind of absence, rapture, don't you know--when she's serious, that
brings your heart right into your mouth. She makes you think of some
of those pictures--I want to tell you what she said the other day at a
picnic when we were off getting blueberries, and you'll understand that
she isn't like other girls--that she has a soul fall of--of--you know
what, Boardman. She has high thoughts about everything. I don't believe
she's ever had a mean or ignoble impulse--she couldn't have." In the
business of im