Pauline accompanied him to the vestibule where he shook hands with her forgivingly. From the platform he secured a last glimpse of the other face, which gave him a friendly smile as he saluted with his dusty leather cap held out toward her at the length of his arm. When he could no longer see her he drew a gusty sigh and turned away. As he stood at the street entrance of the big station, waiting for Johnny Caruthers and the Green Imp, this is what he was saying to himself: “Red, you've made more than one woman unhappy, to say nothing of yourself, by making love to her because she was a beauty and your head swam. This time you've tried rather hard to do her the justice to wait till you know. Only time and absence can settle that. Remember you found a nest of gray hairs in your red pate this morning? That should show that you're gaining wisdom at last, the salt in the red pepper, 'the seasoning of time,' eh, R. P.? But by the rate of my pulse at this present moment I'm inclined to believe--it's going to be a bit hard to write an absolutely sane letter. Perhaps it would be safer if I knew Pauline Pry would see it! I'll try to write as if I knew she would.... But by the spark I thought I saw in those black eyes I don't really imagine Pauline will!” CHAPTER IX. IN WHICH HE SUFFERS A DEFEAT The hands of the office clock were pointing to half after two, on a certain September night, when Burns came into his office, alone. The fire in the office fireplace, kept bright until nearly midnight, when his housekeeper had given up waiting for him and gone to bed, had burned to a few smouldering lumps of cannel-slag. A big leather easy-chair, its arms worn with much use, had been pulled into an inviting position before the fireplace, and the night-light by the desk was burning, as usual. All that could be expected had been done by the kind-hearted Cynthia, who comprehended, by signs she knew well and had been watching for several days, that affairs were going wrong with her employer. But he needed more than could be given him by things inanimate--needed it woefully. He came in as a man comes who is not only physically' weary to the point of exhaustion, but heart sick and sore besides. He dropped his heavy surgical bags upon the floor by the desk as if he wanted never to take them up again, pulled off coat and cap and let them fall where they would, then stumbled blindly over to the big chair and sank into it with a great sigh, as if he had reached the end of all endeavour. If it had been physical fatigue alone which had brought him to this pass he might have dropped asleep where he sat, and waked, after an hour or two, to drag himself away to bed, like one who had been drugged. For a short space, indeed, he lay motionless in the chair in the attitude of one so spent for sleep that he must needs find it in the first place his body touches. But there are times when the mind will not let the body rest. And this was one of them.