ur conversation, you have
refused him, there's an end of the matter; and you need not worry about
seeing him any more.'

"'But,' said she, 'Alice, I haven't refused him!'

"That took me aback a little," went on Alice, "for I had other plans for
her; so I said: 'You haven't accepted the fellow, have you?'

"'Oh, no, no!' said she, in a sort of quivery way, 'but what right have
you to speak of him in that way?' And that is all I could get out of
her. She was so unreasonable and disconnected in her talk, and the
others came out, and I tell you what, Albert Barslow, that man Cornish
will do evil yet, among us! I have always thought so!"

"I don't see any ground for any such prediction," said I, "in anything
you have told me. Her inability to make up her mind--"

"Means that there's something wrong," said my wife dogmatically. "It
means that he has some sinister influence over her, as he has over
almost everybody, with those coal-black eyes of his and his satanic
ways. And worse than all else, it means that he'll finally get her, in
spite of herself!"

"Pshaw!" said I.

"Go away, Albert!" said she, "or we shall quarrel. Go back and find my
fan--I left it on the mantel in the library. The house is lighted yet;
and I was going to send you back anyhow. Kiss me, and go, please."

I felt that if Alice had had in her memory my vision of the supper at
Auriccio's, she would have been confirmed in her fears; but to me, in
spite of the memory, they seemed absurd. My only apprehension was that
she might be right as to the final outcome, to the wreck of Jim's hopes.
I did not take the matter at all seriously, in fact. I think we men must
usually have such an affair worked out to some conclusion, for weal or
woe, before we regard it otherwise than lightly. That was the reason
that Giddings's distraught condition was only a matter of laughter to
all of us. And as something like this passed through my mind, Giddings
himself collared me as I crossed the street.

"Old man!" said he, "congratulate me! It's all right, Barslow, it's all
right."

"Up on the battlements, are you?" said I. "Well, I congratulate you,
Giddings; and don't make such an ass of yourself, please, any more. I
never noticed until this evening what a fine girl Laura is. You're
really a very fortunate fellow indeed!"

"You never noticed it!" said he with utter scorn. "Well, if--"

"It's late," said I. "Come and see me in the morning! Good-night."

I went in a