r overalls----"

"But I don't--Good Heavens!--I don't expect you to care for--for
overalls----"

"Then why do you wear them?" she asked in tremulous indignation.

The young man, galvanized, sprang from his chair and began running about,
taking little, short, distracted steps. "Either," he said, "I need mental
treatment immediately, or I'll wake up toward morning.... I--don't know
what you're trying to say to me. I came here to--to p-paste----"

"That machine sent you!" she said. "The minute I got a spark you
started----"

"Do you think I'm a motor? Spark! Do you think I----"

"Yes, I do. You couldn't help it; I know it was my own fault, and this--
_this_ is the dreadful punishment--g-glued to a t-table top--with a man
named George----"

"What!!!"

"Yes," she said passionately, "everything disobedient I have done has
brought lightning retribution. I was forbidden to go into the laboratory;
I disobeyed and--you came to hang wall paper! I--I took a b-book--which I
had no business to take, and F-fate glues me to your horrid table and
holds me fast till a man named George comes in...."

Flushed, trembling, excited, she made a quick and dramatic gesture of
despair; and a ripping sound rent the silence.

"_Are you pasted to that table?_" faltered the young man, aghast.

"Yes, I am. And it's utterly impossible for you to aid me in the
slightest, except by pretending to ignore it."

"But you--you can't remain there!"

"I can't help remaining here," she said hotly, "until you go."

"Then I'd better----"

"No! You shall _not_ go! I--I won't have you go away--disappear somewhere
in the city. Certainty is dreadful enough, but it's better than the awful
suspense of knowing you are somewhere in the world, and are sure to come
back sometime----"

"But I don't want to come back!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Why should I
wish to come back? Have I said--acted--done--looked--_Why_ should you
imagine that I have the slightest interest in anything or in--in--anybody
in this house?"

"Haven't you?"

"No!... And I cannot ignore your--your amazing--and intensely
f-flattering fear that I have d-designs--that I desire--in other words,
that I--er--have dared to cherish impossible aspirations in connection
with a futile and absurd hope that one day you might possibly be induced
to listen to any tentative suggestion of mine concerning a matrimonial
alliance----"

He choked and turned a dull red.

She reddened, too, but said