A little pleasant giddiness, as if the lightness of her heart had mounted to her head, made her glad of his arm up these steps and up the wharf; and she kept it as they climbed the sloping elm-shaded village street to the main thoroughfare, with its brick sidewalks, its shops and awnings, and its cheerful stir and traffic. The telegraph office fronted the head of the street which they had ascended. “You can sit here in the apothecary’s till I come down,” he said. “Do you think that will be professionally appropriate? I am only a nurse now.” “No, I wasn’t thinking of that. But I saw a chair in there. And we can make a pretense of wanting some soda. It is the proper thing to treat young ladies to soda when one brings them in from the country.” “It _does_ have that appearance,” she assented, with a smile. She kept him waiting with what would have looked like coquettish hesitation in another, while she glanced at the windows overhead, pierced by a skein of converging wires. “Suppose I go up with you?” “I should like that better,” he said; and she followed him lightly up the stairs that led to the telegraph office. A young man stood at the machine with a cigar in his mouth, and his eyes intent upon the ribbon of paper unreeling itself before him. “Just hold on,” he said to Libby, without turning his head. “I’ve got something here for you.” He read: “Despatch received yesterday. Coming right through. George Maynard.” “Good!” cried Libby. “Dated Council Bluffs. Want it written out?” “No. What’s to pay?” “Paid,” said the operator. The laconically transacted business ended with this, the wire began to cluck again like the anxious hen whose manner the most awful and mysterious of the elements assumes in becoming articulate, and nothing remained for them but to come away. “That was what I was afraid of,” said Libby. “Maynard was at his ranch, and it must have been a good way out. They’re fifty or sixty miles out, sometimes. That would account for the delay. Well, Mrs. Maynard doesn’t know how long it takes to come from Cheyenne, and we can tell her he’s on the way, and has telegraphed.” They were walking rapidly down the street to the wharf where his boat lay. “Oh!” he exclaimed, halting abruptly. “I promised to send you back by land, if you preferred.” “Has the wind fallen?” “Oh, no. We shall have a good breeze:” “I won’t put you to the trouble of getting a horse. I can go back perfectly well in the boat.” “Well, that’s what I think,” he said cheerily. She did not respond, and he could not be aware that any change had come over her mood. But when they were once more seated in the boat, and the sail was pulling in the fresh breeze, she turned to him with a scarcely concealed indignation. “Have you a fancy for experimenting upon people, Mr. Libby?” “Experimenting? I? I don’t know in the least what you mean!” “Why did you tell me that the operator was a woman?” “Because the other operator is,” he answered.