s,"
Helen told him, when the conversation was barely begun.

"Do I show it as plainly as that?" he replied, somewhat ruefully.
"Well, I'll admit that, funereal as I may look, it's not a circumstance
to the way I feel. That's partly why I came here--to see you and be
cheered up."

Somewhere down in the still, chill Boston archives of Miss Maitland's
supposedly well-schooled emotions a little quiver awoke and stirred.
This was quite without warrant or suggestion from the girl herself, and
she strove to convince herself that no stir had been felt.
Unfortunately, however, she had received that day a letter from her
mother bringing her to a decision which she must now convey to the man
before her, and she felt a flash of almost reckless curiosity to see
how he would receive it.

"If I were a horrible egotist," she said lightly, "I should think that
a little part of your depression came from anticipating that I was
going to tell you I am going back home next week."

Smith looked at her in silence. He looked at her until she felt the
pause and broke again into speech.

"You see, I have to get back to be with mother at Christmas, and there
are a lot of things to do before then--" she began, but he interrupted
her.

"I said I came here to be cheered up--and that is what you tell me!" he
said. "I came up here half hoping to be soothed back into my customary
optimism--and this is what I get! This is certainly an accursed month
in an accursed year!"

It occurred to Helen that, regarding the matter strictly from a
standpoint of gallantry, the year wherein a young man met her and
successfully won her friendship should not properly be termed in all
ways and wholly accursed. She scarcely felt like pointing this out,
however; and the compliment of Smith's real concern at her departure
would compensate for a little gaucherie of expression. As though he
had read her thought, Smith spoke again, this time with all trace of
the sardonic gone from his tone.

"I beg your pardon--I didn't mean that," he said. "It has been a fine
year. I won't revile it just because it ends with a double
catastrophe. How soon do you expect to leave?"

"The end of next week, I think," the girl answered. There was an
expression in his eyes which she did not quite understand, and
therefore distrusted; and she hurriedly turned the conversation into
another channel.

"If you flatter me by regarding my departure as one catastrophe, what
is the