"I--I shall miss--very--very much miss--pray pardon me--I--I believe I'm ill--a little faint I'd--I'd better get out into the air--I shall--shall miss--pardon--I--I'm not quite myself-- goodbye, good-bye!" and he staggered unsteadily, half blindly to the door and out into the street without another word. He certainly did look ill.
Gwen's face was a study. In it surprise, fear, pain, and dismay, each struggled for predominance. She tried to retain her self-control while I was present, but it was all in vain. A moment later she threw herself upon the sofa, and, burying her face in the cushions, wept long and bitterly. I stole quietly away and sent Alice to her, and after a time she regained her self-control, if not her usual interest in affairs.
As day after day passed, however, and Maitland neglected to call, transacting such business as he had through me, the shadow on Gwen's face deepened, and the elasticity of manner, whereof she had given such promise at Maitland's last visit, totally deserted her, giving place to a dreamy, far-away stolidity of disposition which I knew full well boded no good. I stood this sort of thing as long as I could, and then I determined to call on Maitland and give him a "piece of my mind."
I did call, but when I saw him all my belligerent resolutions vanished. He was sitting at his table trying to work out some complicated problem, and he was utterly unfitted for a single minute's consecutive thought. I had not seen him for more than two weeks, and during that time he had grown to look ten years older. His face was drawn, haggard, and deathly pale.
"For Heaven's sake, George," I exclaimed, "what is the matter with you?"
"I've an idea I'm spleeny," he replied with a ghastly attempt at a smile. This was too much for me. He should have the lecture after all. The man who thinks he is dying may be spleeny, but the man who says he is spleeny is, of the two, the one more likely to be dying.
"See here, old man," I began, "don't you get to thinking that when you hide your own head in the sand no one can see the colour of your feathers. You might as well try to cover up Bunker Hill Monument with a wisp of straw. Don't you suppose I know you love Gwen Darrow? That's what's the matter with you."
"Well," he replied, "and if it is, what then?"
"What then?" I ejaculated. "What then? Why go to her like a man; tell her you love her and ask her to be your wife. That's what I'd do if I loved--" But he interrupted me before I had finished the lie, and I was not sorry, for, if I had thought before I became involved in that last sentence, how I feared to speak to Jeannette --well, I should have left it unsaid. I have made my living giving advice till it has become a fixed habit.