"I beg pardon, sir--I didn't mean to be rough," cried Flanders. "I'm so excited I don't know what I'm doing, that's all. A man may be excused for a lot of brainstorm antics when he's going to be married again. It--" "Married again? I thought you said you'd never--" "What I mean is this: I was going to be married once and now I'm going to be married again. See? Oh, you know what I mean. I'm just driveling--simply driveling with joy. We fixed it all up fifteen minutes after we got together. You might congratulate me, Mr. Bingle." "God bless my soul! Congratulate you on what?" "I'm going to marry your governess." CHAPTER IX THE MAN CALLED HINMAN Bright and early on Christmas morning, Mr. Sydney Force walked slowly, even irresolutely up the broad avenue leading to Mr. Bingle's stupendous door-step. The snow had been cleared off of the narrow footpath, but the president of the great city bank was so deeply engrossed that he failed to take advantage of this singular demonstration of worthiness on the part of Edgecomb and his assistants so soon after the break of dawn. As a matter of fact, he had forgotten that it was Christmas morning. He walked in the middle of the roadway, in four inches of snow, and kept his gaze fixed rather intently on the big house at the top of the avenue. Mr. Force had not slept well. Indeed, he had not slept at all. The shock he had received early in the evening was of the kind that shatters one's peace of mind to a degree but little short of calamitous. A plunge into ice-cold water would have failed to produce the deadly chill that crept over him when he heard the name of Glenn. How he succeeded in controlling himself so well that his profound agitation escaped the attention of the others, he could not explain. He was amazed to find that he had managed it so well. For, it must be confessed, Mr. Force's habitual equanimity had undergone a strain that came so near to resulting in a collapse that only a miracle--(it may have taken the form of stupefaction, or a kindly paralysis)--only a miracle could have kept him from betraying the one great secret of his life. Ordinarily, he would have put off calling on the Bingles for a month or six weeks, being that scornful of social amenities; but he could hardly wait for the approach of sunrise to be on his way to Seafood on this brilliant Christmas morning. It was not a brilliant, shimmering day for him, however. He saw nothing beautiful in the steel-blue sky: to him it was a drab, unlovely pall. He saw no beauty in the snow-clad foliage, no splendour in the bejewelled tree-tops, no purity in the veil of white that lay upon the face of the earth. He saw only himself, and he was a drear, bleak thing as viewed introspectively.