"No, I certainly wasn't," he assented, with such a sense of approaching creepiness in his experience that when she challenged him to say what he _was_ thinking of, he could not, or would not; she professed to believe that he would not. In the joking that followed he soon lost the sense of approaching creepiness, and began to be proud of what had happened to him as out of the ordinary, as a species of psychological ecstasy almost of spiritual value. From time to time he tried, by thinking of the splash and upward gush from the cannon-shot's plunge in the sea, to recall the vision, but it would not come again, and at the end of an afternoon somewhat distraughtly spent he decided to put the matter away, as one of the odd things of no significance which happen in life and must be dealt with as mysteries none the less trifling because they are inexplicable. "Well, you've got over it?" the widow joked him as he drew up towards her, smiling from her rocker on the veranda after supper. At first, all the women in the hotel had petted him; but with their own cares and ailments to reclaim them they let the invalid fall to the peculiar charge of the childless widow who had nothing else to do, and was so well and strong that she could look after the invalid Professor of Archaeology (at the Champlain University) without the fatigues they must feel. "Yes, I've got over it," he said. "And what was it?" she boldly pursued. He was about to say, and then he could not. "You won't tell?" "Not yet," he answered. He added, after a moment, "I don't believe I can." "Because it's confidential?" "No; not exactly that. Because it's impossible." "Oh, that's simple enough. I understand exactly what you mean. Well, if ever it becomes less difficult, remember that I should always like to know. It seemed a little--personal." "How in the world?" "Well, when one is stared at in that way--" "Did I stare?" "Don't you _always_ stare? But in this case you stared as if there was something wrong with my hair." "There wasn't," Alford protested, simple-heartedly. Then he recollected his sophistication to say: "Unless its being of that particular shade between brown and red was wrong." "Oh, thank you, Mr. Alford! After that I _must_ believe you."