er having slept on it;
but everything that could be called desire in his nature had focused
itself now into the passion to make Rosie his own. That first!--and all
else afterward. That first!--but he could neither see beyond it nor did
he want to see.

The excitement he had been tempted to ascribe on the previous evening to
his talk with Elsie Darling, and perhaps in some degree to a glass or
two of champagne, having become intensified, it was a proof of its being
"the real thing." He was sure now that it was not only the real thing,
but that it would be lasting. This was no spasmodic breeze through his
aeolian harp, but the breath and life of his being. He came to this
conclusion as he packed a bag that he could send for toward evening, and
made a few other preparations for a temporary absence from his father's
house. Putting one thing with another, he had reason to feel sure that
he and Rosie would be back there together before long, forgiven and
received, so that he was relieved of the necessity of taking a farewell.

"_I_ think it's splendid," rang in his heart like a cheer. Any one would
think it splendid who knew what he was going to do--and what he was
renouncing!

It was annoying that on reaching the spot where he took the electric car
to go to town old Jasper Fay should be waiting there. It was still more
annoying that among the other intending passengers there should be no
one whom Claude knew. To drop into conversation with a friend would have
kept Fay at a distance. Just now his appearance--neat, shabby, pathetic,
the superior workingman in his long-preserved, threadbare Sunday
clothes--introduced disturbing notes into the swelling hymeneal chant to
which Claude felt himself to be marching. There were practical reasons,
too, why he should have preferred to hold no intercourse with Fay till
after he had crossed his Rubicon. He nodded absently, therefore, and,
passing to the far end of the little straggling line, prayed that the
car would quicken its speed in coming.

Through the tail of his eye he could see Fay detach himself from the
patient group of watchers and shamble in his direction. "What's it to be
now?" Claude said to himself, but he stood his ground. He stood his
ground without turning, or recognizing Fay's approach. He leaned
nonchalantly on his stick, looking wearily up the line for rescue, till
he heard a nervous cough. The nervous cough was followed by the words,
huskily spoken:

"Mr. Clau