ome years before.

"I'm glad to see you again, Philip. I began to think you were not coming
any more. Sit down," said Millard. "How is book-collecting? Anything
startling lately?" he added by way of launching the talk, as he usually
did on the favorite subject of his companion.

"No, no," said Philip, seating himself.

"I've not seen much of you lately, anywhere," said Millard, making a new
start. "But that is my fault. I've pretty much cut general society this
spring, and I think for good. I've been busy and tired, and to tell the
truth, I don't care much for society any more. You still go out a good
deal. Is there anything interesting?"

"Oh, no," said Gouverneur.

Seeing that Philip was preoccupied and that all attempts to give him
direction and set him in motion were likely to prove futile, Charley
concluded to let him start himself in whatever direction his mood might
lead him. He did this the more readily that he himself found talking
hard work in his present mood. But by way of facilitating the start,
Millard held out to Philip a bronze tray containing some cigars.

"No, thank you, Charley. I don't feel like smoking."

To Millard's mind nothing could have been more ominous than for Philip
Gouverneur to refuse to smoke.

"I suppose I might as well begin at once," said Philip. "If I wait I
never shall get the courage to say what I want to say. I ought to have
waited till morning, but if I once put off a good resolution it is never
carried out. So I came down here pell-mell, Charley, resolved not to
give myself time to think what a piece of impertinent impudence I was
going to be guilty of." Then after a pause he said: "If you turn me out
of the apartment neck and heels, I sha'n't be surprised."

"Pshaw, Philip, you excite my curiosity," said Millard, trying to smile,
but yet a little aghast at seeing his old friend in this unusual mood,
and divining that the subject would be disagreeable.

"I come to speak about Phillida," said Philip.

Ever since Millard's hopes had received their quietus from Mrs.
Callender's note in which Phillida declined to receive a visit from him,
he had recognized the necessity for getting Phillida out of his mind if
he were ever again to have any sane contentment in life. If Phillida did
not any longer care for him, it would be unmanly for him to continue
brooding over the past. But he found that exhorting himself to manliness
would not cure a heartache. There was nothing he co