Also, the thought of another stolen evening alone with her was not unpleasant. It would be the last, he promised himself. After all, it was owing to her. He had treated her badly.
Sidney would be at a lecture that night. The evening loomed temptingly free.
“Suppose you meet me at the old corner,” he said carelessly, eyes on the Lamb, who was forgetting that he was only a junior interne and was glaring ferociously. “We'll run out into the country and talk things over.”
She demurred, with her heart beating triumphantly.
“What's the use of going back to that? It's over, isn't it?”
Her objection made him determined. When at last she had yielded, and he made his way down to the smoking-room, it was with the feeling that he had won a victory.
K. had been uneasy all that day; his ledgers irritated him. He had been sleeping badly since Sidney's announcement of her engagement. At five o'clock, when he left the office, he found Joe Drummond waiting outside on the pavement.
“Mother said you'd been up to see me a couple of times. I thought I'd come around.”
“Not out in the country. I'm not as muscular as you are. I'll go about town for a half-hour or so.”
Thus forestalled, K. found his subject hard to lead up to. But here again Joe met him more than halfway.
“Well, go on,” he said, when they found themselves in the park; “I don't suppose you were paying a call.”
“I guess I know what you are going to say.”
“I'm not going to preach, if you're expecting that. Ordinarily, if a man insists on making a fool of himself, I let him alone.”
“One reason is that I happen to like you. The other reason is that, whether you admit it or not, you are acting like a young idiot, and are putting the responsibility on the shoulders of some one else.”
“Not in the least. How old are you, Joe?”
“Exactly. You are a man, and you are acting like a bad boy. It's a disappointment to me. It's more than that to Sidney.”
“Much she cares! She's going to marry Wilson, isn't she?”
“There is no announcement of any engagement.”
“She is, and you know it. Well, she'll be happy--not! If I'd go to her to-night and tell her what I know, she'd never see him again.” The idea, thus born in his overwrought brain, obsessed him. He returned to it again and again. Le Moyne was uneasy. He was not certain that the boy's statement had any basis in fact. His single determination was to save Sidney from any pain.
