I had to force into that laugh a note
of happy gayety! I sat on the edge of the divan, very erect, pulling
at my fingers, for I was no longer David Malcolm, a dreaming boy; I was
a man with a vital fact to meet. Meeting it, I must become to her as
any other man she knew--a formal creature, a lay figure for the
barber's and tailor's art, with a gift of talking inanities.

"It's not because I don't want to go," I said. I was glad that I was
in the shadow, for though my voice was steady I felt the blood leave my
face. "But you see--there is something I have been wanting to tell
you. I'm to be married."

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

If I had hoped to hear more of a cry of pain than that one exclamation
of surprise, I must have been disappointed. But I cherished no such
hope now. I was utterly miserable. I was awkward and ill at ease.
The Penelope Blight I had known lived in another world, and this
Penelope Blight who was regarding me so quietly, meeting my covert
glance with a friendly smile, could, after all, never be more than a
casual acquaintance.

"How splendid!" she said. Mrs. Bannister, I think, would have spoken
in that same way, as though the news were quite the most delightful
that she had ever heard. "Who to? Quick--I must hear all about it."

"To a Miss Todd," I answered, and, though I struggled against it, I
cleared my throat dryly. "A Miss Gladys Todd."

The name sounded harshly in my ears. I was conscious that I had used
it in the manner of the select circles of Harlansburg, and I was angry
that, though knowing better, I had let myself lapse into the ways of a
manikin. When I had spoken of Joe Hicks it was from my heart; I had
forgotten my hands, and Penelope and I had laughed together. When I
spoke of Gladys Todd my voice was tainted with apology. Inwardly I was
calling myself a cad, for it mattered little whether or not I loved
her. I had won her trust, and my first duty was to speak her name with
pride. But I had had that brief glimpse of Penelope Blight, the
companion of my boyhood; I had walked with her, grown lovelier than my
dreams, through visionary woods and fields. She was before me, a
dainty woman of the world; behind her the firelight fanned the leaves
carved for her long ago by the old Italian artist; from above
Reynolds's majestic lady looked down at her kindly, at me with a
haughty stare, as if she read presumption in my mind. Never could I
imagine her photographed on a cam