"I wish we could," she answered, in her best manner. And she was
moving toward the door, the old man in her wake. Neither of them
offered to shake hands with me; neither made pretense of saying
good-by to Anita, standing by the window like a pillar of ice. I had
closed the drawing-room door behind me, as I entered. I was about to
open it for them when I was restrained by what I saw working in the
old woman's face. She had set her will on escaping from my loathed
presence without a "scene"; but her rage at having been outgeneraled
was too fractious for her will.

"You scoundrel!" she hissed, her whole body shaking and her carefully
cultivated appearance of the gracious evening of youth swallowed up in
a black cyclone of hate. "You gutter plant! God will punish you for
the shame you have brought upon us."

I opened the door and bowed, without a word, without even the desire
to return insult for insult--had not Anita again and finally rejected
them and chosen me? As they passed into the private hall I rang for
Sanders to come and let them out. When I turned back into the drawing
room, Anita was seated, was reading a book. I waited until I saw she
was not going to speak. Then I said: "What time will you have dinner?"
But my face must have been expressing some of the joy and gratitude
that filled me. "She has chosen me!" I was saying to myself over and
over.

"Whenever you usually have it," she replied, without looking up.

"At seven o'clock, then. You had better tell Sanders." And I rang for
him and went into my little smoking room. She had resisted her
parents' final appeal to her to return to them. She had cast in her
lot with me. "The rest can be left to time," said I to myself. And,
reviewing all that had happened, I let a wild hope thrust tenacious
roots deep into me--the hope that she did not quite understand her own
mind as to me. How often ignorance is a blessing; how often knowledge
would make the step falter and the heart quail. Who would have the
courage, not to speak of the desire, to live his life, if he knew his
own future?

XV.

During dinner I bore the whole burden of conversation--though burden I
did not find it. Like most of the most reticent men, I am extremely
talkative. Silence sets people to wondering and prying; he hides his
secrets best who hides them at the bottom of a river of words. If my
spirits are high, I often talk aloud to myself when there is no one
convenient. And how could my