And then, as if so reminded that his tongue possessed this accomplishment, he all at once burst out: "Why--but--why! You _have_ accepted it! It was settled!--long ago! _Not going!_--what do you mean? Why, what's happened?" The young woman seated so inappropriately at the desk, gazing so meaninglessly into pigeon-holes, made no reply. And now Charles Garrott was walking toward her, walking as the entranced walk, fascinated, staring with fixed eyes that had forgotten how to wink. "What're you talking about? I don't know what you mean! Why, what's happened--what's gone wrong?" Mary Wing grew restless under his questionings; she spoke with obvious effort: "Nothing's happened--nothing's gone wrong. I say, I simply decided that I wouldn't--take the position, after all. I decided I would refuse it. So I was writing to Dr. Ames--to explain ... That's all I can say." But the man standing over her looked more spellbound than ever. "Explain!--explain what?... Why--you can't put me off like this--can you?" said he, all his stiffness so shattered by her thunderbolt, all his struggle but for some effect of poise. "You _must_ know--I'm tremendously interested. And--I'm obliged to feel that something pretty serious has happened to make you--" "No!--nothing has happened at all, I've said. I assure you--nothing." "But ... You can't imagine how absolutely in the dark ... Do you mean you've found something else you'd rather do--here?" "I suppose that's one way of putting it--yes.... Why, I simply say that when the time came--I wasn't able to do it, that's all.... No, I didn't want to do it--that must have been it. Of course, people always do what they really want most." "You didn't want to do what?... You know, that's just what I don't quite understand." "But I've just told you," she protested; and there stopped short. She had overcome the brief weakness which had seemed to seize her when, for the first time, she heard her intention declared aloud, the spoken word, it may be, imparting to it the last irrevocable stroke. She, the competent, would not be incompetent with her own great affair. And now, as if she reluctantly acknowledged some right he had to understand, she seemed to force herself to speak again, in a voice from which her self-control had pressed all tone. "I mean that, when the time came, I couldn't pick up and go away--for good--no matter what was at the other end. I mean I wasn't willing to. I'd rather not." She took a breath; and then tone came into her sentences, but it was only a sort of light hardness. "I suppose it all came down to this--that I wasn't willing to leave mother--in the way I should have to leave her. I didn't want to. It was not possible ... And I'm afraid that's all I can say." "But of course I understand you now," said the young man instantly, in the strangest mild voice. "Then, if you will--please me--let's say no more about it."