od, gazing reproachfully and
adoringly at Emily's proudly lifted head. Emily, for all her
unconsciousness of physical necessity, lost her appetite, and grew
pale. The mental and physical may have nothing in harmony, as she
says, but certainly her mental upheaval resulting from the lack of
Rodney's demonstrations of love, affected her physical appetite as well
as her complexion.

"When Rodney met Emily in the halls, he made her life miserable.

"'Good morning, Long Sin Coo.' 'Hello, Ghostie.' 'Hey, Spirit, may I
borrow a nip of brandy to make an ethereal cocktail for my imaginary
nightcap?'

"And he opened his transom and took to talking to himself out loud. So
Emily decided to close her transom. It stuck. She asked my
assistance, and we balanced a chair on a box and I held it steady while
she got up to oil the transom. But first she would lose her balance,
then she would drop the oil can, then the box would slip. She couldn't
reach the joints, or whatever you call them, and when she stood on
tiptoe she lost her balance. Then she got her finger in the joint and
pinched it, emitting a most material squeal as she did so. Happening
to glance through the transom, she saw Rodney standing below in the
hall, grinning at her with inharmonious, unspiritual, unsentimental
glee, and she tugged viciously at the transom, banging herself off the
box, upsetting the chair, and squirting oil all over me as she fell.

"Rodney rushed to the rescue, but Emily was already scrambling into
sitting posture, scared, bruised and furious. She had torn her dress,
twisted her ankle, bumped her head and scratched her face. And Rodney
had seen it.

"Ignoring me, Rodney sat down on the box and looked her over with cold
professional eyes.

"'My little seeker after truth,' he said, 'you are a mystic combination
of spirit and mind. You are in tune with the infinite spheres. You
are a breath in a universal breeze. Therefore you feel no
inconvenience. Get up, my child, and waltz an Oriental hesitation down
the hall and convince yourself everlastingly that you are in truth only
a mysterious unit in a universe of harmonic chords.'

"Emily dropped her head on the oil can, lifted up her voice and wept.
And Rodney, with an exclamation that a minister's daughter can not
repeat, took the unhappy mystic into his arms.

"'Sweetheart, forgive me. I am a brute, I know. Knock me on the head
with the oil can, won't you? Don't cry, sweethear