s so startled
that--just instinctively I put my arm around her. She clung to me and--I
tried to soothe her and before I knew it--I couldn't help it--I kissed
her."

The doctor smiled. "If you hadn't kissed her under those circumstances,
my boy, I would never have forgiven you. Perhaps she wouldn't either.
Well?"

"It's going to be pretty tough, sir, to tell you--some of this,"
stammered Herrick, frowning at the carpet. "Penelope got awfully angry
and said she was going to leave. I apologized and tried to square
myself, but she wouldn't have it. She said I had insulted her and she
refused to stay in my place another minute. I asked her to wait until I
could get a dry coat and umbrella for her and then I would take her
wherever she wanted to go. She agreed to wait and I went into the other
room."

Christopher paused and drew his chair closer to the doctor.

"Now here is a most extraordinary thing. When I left Penelope she was
standing before the fire, furious with me, but when I came back, not two
minutes later, she was lying on the divan with her eyes closed,
apparently asleep. As I had been out of the room for so short a time, it
seemed incredible that she could have really fallen asleep, yet there
she was. I looked at her in astonishment. I wondered if she could have
fainted, but I saw that her cheeks were flushed, her lips were red and
she was breathing regularly. I didn't know what to make of it."

"Well?" questioned the doctor.

Herrick shifted uneasily on his chair. "I haven't had much experience
with women, sir, but I know they are complicated creatures, and I
couldn't help thinking that Penelope was playing a little joke on me; so
I bent over her and, after I had made up my mind that she wasn't ill and
wasn't asleep, I--I kissed her again. That's another queer thing. Her
lips were warm, her breathing was as soft and regular as a child's, but
she never moved nor spoke nor responded in any way. She just lay there
and--"

"You thought she was shamming?" suggested Owen.

"That's it, especially as she had been so angry with me just a few
minutes before. I couldn't imagine anything else. So--er--"

"Go on," said the older man.

"You know I have always respected women, and this woman was more to me
than anything--she's the woman I want for my wife, so you see I would be
the last man in the world to show her disrespect, but--" the young
fellow flushed--"as I looked at her there on the divan--so beautiful--I