Stapylton persisted; and then she
asked, in a voice that came very near being inaudible: "Is it too late
to tell her now, Olaf?"

The stupid man opened his lips a little, and stood staring at her with
hungry eyes, wondering if it were really possible that she did not hear
the pounding of his heart; and then his teeth clicked, and he gave a
despondent gesture.

"Yes," he said, wearily, "it is too late now."

Thereupon Miss Stapylton tossed her head. "Oh, very well!" said she;
"only, for my part, I think you acted very foolishly, and I don't see
that you have the least right to complain. I quite fail to see how you
could have expected her to marry you--or, in fact, how you can expect
any woman to marry you,--if you won't, at least, go to the trouble of
asking her to do so!"

Then Miss Stapylton went into the house, and slammed the door after her.

III

Nor was that the worst of it. For when Rudolph Musgrave followed her--as
he presently did, in a state of considerable amaze,--his sister
informed him that Miss Stapylton had retired to her room with an
unaccountable headache.

And there she remained for the rest of the evening. It was an unusually
long evening.

Yet, somehow, in spite of its notable length--affording, as it did, an
excellent opportunity for undisturbed work,--Colonel Musgrave found,
with a pricking conscience, that he made astonishingly slight progress
in an exhaustive monograph upon the fragmentary Orderly Book of an
obscure captain in a long-forgotten regiment, which if it had not
actually served in the Revolution, had at least been demonstrably
granted money "for services," and so entitled hundreds of aspirants to
become the Sons (or Daughters) of various international disagreements.

Nor did he see her at breakfast--nor at dinner.

IV

A curious little heartache accompanied Colonel Musgrave on his way home
that afternoon. He had not seen Patricia Stapylton for twenty-four
hours, and he was just beginning to comprehend what life would be like
without her. He did not find the prospect exhilarating.

Then, as he came up the orderly graveled walk, he heard, issuing from
the little vine-covered summer-house, a loud voice. It was a man's
voice, and its tones were angry.

"No! no!" the man was saying; "I'll agree to no such nonsense, I tell
you! What do you think I am?"

"I think you are a jackass-fool," Miss Stapylton said, crisply, "and a
fortune-hunter, and a sot, and a t