She rose stiffly. She said: "Then I suppose I'll have to find something myself. Thank you. I'm glad"
"Wait." He sprang up, dropping his hat. "Don't go. I'll—I'll think of something. I couldn't think of anything but seeing you. I forgot. I didn't have time. There's something. I'll find something. I know a girl here—Miss Morris. She'll know. She's from Coulton. I asked her. She I only suggested the stage because I thought, with your singing and that, you'd be able to I didn't know of anything else. I thought when we met we'd be able to talk it over. I thought you'd know, yourself."
"Well! Why didn't you say so?"
"I" He looked around the room, as if vaguely accusing it of being the cause of his discomfiture. "I thought you would come out—where we could talk."
She left him, to go upstairs for her hat; and he stood gazing at the empty doorway as if he saw there, still, the expression of her face when she had turned from him, as if he saw in that expression the visible failure of this meeting of which he had hoped so much. With a look of panic, he turned to pick up his hat, and crushing it down on his head he began to walk up and down the room, biting his lip, his whole face working in a desperate effort to think of something to do, something to say, by which to regain the ground that he had lost.
When she came downstairs again, she found him pale, but tremblingly cool. He said, at once, as soon as he had opened the door for her: "Your letter took me so by surprise—I was looking forward so to seeing you—that I didn't think how anxious you would be to
