elf, I left my study before the hour of noon.

It is impossible for me to say how the events, or rather the want of
events, of that morning disturbed my mind. By turns I was angry, I was
grieved, I was regretful, I was resentful. It is so easy sometimes for
one person, with the utmost placidity, to throw another person into a
state of mental agitation; and this I think is especially noticeable
when the placid party is a woman.

As the day wore on, my disquiet of mind and body and general ill humor
did not abate, and, wishing that other people should not notice my
unusual state of mind, I took an early afternoon train to the city;
leaving a note for Walkirk, informing him that his services as listener
would not be needed that evening. The rest of that day I spent at my
club, where, fortunately for my mood, I met only a few old fellows who
could not get out of town in the summer, and who had learned, from long
practice, to be quite sufficient unto themselves. Seated in a corner of
the large reading-room, I spent the evening smoking, holding in my hand
an unread newspaper, and asking myself mental questions.

I inquired why in the name of common sense I allowed myself to be so
disturbed by the conduct of an amanuensis, paid by the day, and,
moreover, a member of a religious order. I inquired why the fates should
have so ordered it that this perfectly charming young woman should
suddenly have become frozen into a mass of gray ice. I inquired if I had
inadvertently done or said anything which would naturally wound the
feelings or arouse the resentment of a sister of the House of Martha. I
inquired if there could be any reasonable excuse for a girl who, on
account of an omission or delay in asking her name, would assume a
manner of austere rudeness to a gentleman who had always treated her
with scrupulous courtesy. Finally I asked myself why it was that I
persisted, and persisted, and persisted in thinking about a thing like
this, when my judgment told me that I should instantly dismiss the whole
affair from my mind, and employ my thoughts on something sensible; and
to this I gave the only answer which I made to any of the inquiries I
had put to myself. That was that I did not know why this was so, but it
was so, and there was no help for it.

Walking home from the station quite late at night, the question which
had so much troubled me suddenly resolved itself, and I became convinced
that the change in the manner of my sec