The heavenly magic of that fiddle! It made her sad. Genius, the ability

to play with souls, soothe, tantalize, lift up; and then to smile at her

like that!

She shut down the curtain upon these cogitations and summoned Cutty,

visualized his handsome head, shot with gray, the humour of his smile.

She did care for him; no doubt of that. She couldn't have sent that

telegram else. Cutty--name of a pipe, as the Frenchmen said! All at once

she rocked with laughter. She was going to marry a man whose given name

she could not recall! Henry, George, John, William? For the life of her

she could not remember.

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And with this laughter still bubbling in a softer note she got into bed,

twisted about from side to side, from this pillow to that, the tired

body seeking perfect relaxation.

A broken melody entered her head. Sleepily she sought one channel of

thought after another to escape; still the melody persisted. As her

consciousness dodged hither and thither the bars and measures joined....

She sat up, chilled, bewildered. That Tschaikowsky waltz! She could

hear it as clearly as if Johnny Two-Hawks and the Amati were in the very

room. She grew afraid. Of what? She did not know.

And while she sat there in bed threshing out this fear to find the

grain, Cutty was tramping the streets of Washington, her telegram

crumpled in his hand. From time to time he would open it and reread it

under a street lamp.

To marry her and then to cheat her. It wasn't humanly possible to marry

her and then to let her go. He thought of those warm, soft arms round

his neck, the absolute trust of that embrace. Molly's girl. No, he could

not do it. He would have to back down, tell her he could not put the

bargain through, invent some other scheme.

The idea had been repugnant to her. It had taken her a week to fight it

out. It was a little beyond his reach, however, why the idea should have

been repugnant to her. It entailed nothing beyond a bit of mummery. The

repugnance was not due to religious training. The Conover household, as

he recalled it, had been rather lax in that respect. Why, then, should

Kitty have hesitated?

He thought of Hawksley, and swore. But for Hawksley's suggestion no

muddle like this would have occurred. Devil take him and his infernal

green stones!

Cutty suddenly remembered his train. He looked at his watch and saw that

his lower berth was well on the way to Baltimore. Always and eternally

he was missing something.




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