shake your fist at him, ladies, for so
misunderstanding you!) he expected also to note in that sympathetic
face a look of subdued triumph, and as it was not there, David could
not have proposed.

The fact of her not having told him about it at once did not prove to
Tommy that there had been no proposal. His feeling was that she would
consider it too sacred a thing to tell even to him, but that it would
force its way out in a week or two.

On the other hand, she could not have resisted dropping shyly such
remarks as these: "I think Dr. Gemmell is a noble man," or, "How
wonderfully good Dr. Gemmell is to the poor!"

Also she would sometimes have given Tommy a glance that said, "I
wonder if you guess." Had they quarrelled? Tommy smiled. If it was
but a quarrel he was not merely appeased--he was pleased. Had he had
the ordering of the affair, he would certainly have included a lovers'
quarrel in it, and had it not been that he wanted to give her the
pleasure of finding these things out for herself, he would have taken
her aside and addressed her thus: "No need to look tragic, Elspeth;
for to a woman this must be really one of the most charming moments in
the comedy. You feel that he would not have quarrelled had he had any
real caring for you, and yet in your heart you know it is a proof that
he has. To a woman, I who know assure you that nothing can be more
delicious. Your feeling for him, as you and I well know, is but a
sentiment of attraction because he loves you as you are unable to love
him, and as you are so pained by this quarrel, consider how much more
painful it must be to him. You think you have been slighted; that when
a man has seemed to like you so much you have a right to be told so by
him, that you may help him with your sympathy. Oh, Elspeth, you think
yourself unhappy just now when you are really in the middle of one of
the pleasantest bits of it! Love is a series of thrills, the one
leading to the other, and, as your careful guardian, I would not have
you miss one of them. You will come to the final bang quickly enough,
and find it the finest thrill of all, but it is soon over. When you
have had to tell him that you are not for him, there are left only the
pleasures of memory, and the more of them there were, the more there
will be to look back to. I beg you, Elspeth, not to hurry; loiter
rather, smelling the flowers and plucking them, for you may never be
this way again."

All these things he might