Rex could have told him something about that hair and the loss of a part of it, which had so greatly improved Irene’s appearance. He had noticed the improvement when he saw her that morning, but had said nothing, feeling that she would not like the subject referred to. Of course he could not speak of it to Colin, who went on. “Don’t you think something is due the girl? Here you’ve been playing up to her for weeks and given her reason to think you meant something, and you hang off because she is too tall! Great Scott! I’m ashamed of you! Too tall! Great Moses!” Colin was growing quite heated and Rex took his castigation very meekly and only said, “What do you advise me to do? What shall I say to her? You know I have no fund of small talk, to say nothing of making love.” “Say to her? Heaven and earth! I could find enough to say, old as I am. I never tried it, but common sense tells me what I should do in your case. Plunge in. Tell her you are a coward and a fool not to have spoken before. She probably has thought that forty times. Tell her you are ready to fulfil your part of the business if she is. Snug up to her, take her hand, and squeeze it a little. She will let you—ask her if her pulse beats in unison with yours! Go to-morrow, and have it out!” Rex laughed till the tears ran, at Colin’s directions with regard to his lovemaking. “I wish you had to do it,” he said, “but as it seems to devolve on me, I’ll go to-morrow and as a preliminary ask her what she thinks of the will, instead of how her pulse beats.” “Hang your preliminary,” Colin growled, “Ask her to be your wife! That will look as if you wanted her, even if there were no will.” Rex was not quite certain whether he wanted her or not, but Colin’s attitude helped to reassure him and he said again. “I’ll settle it to-morrow one way or the other.” “There’s only one way to settle it. Ask her out and out and don’t hint that she’s too tall! My soul! As if there could be too much of a woman like that!” Colin rejoined, as he lighted his pipe and went out upon the piazza to smoke, leaving Rex alone. The pain in his head which had left him for a time had come back again and he could not think of anything very clearly except that he must propose to Irene the next day. Even that did not seem to impress him very strongly. Nothing impressed him very much, and after he went to his room he sat a long time by his window, scarcely knowing of what he was thinking, except that he was hot and cold by turns, with a buzzing in his head, and he was going to propose to Irene on the morrow. “Squeeze her hand and ask how her pulse was beating,” Colin had suggested. But Rex didn’t believe he should do that, and he didn’t believe he should do anything, if it were not for that face in the mirror, which kept haunting him with its one eye, which followed him persistently and made him so uncomfortable and nervous.