Phillida and her mother were to leave on Friday afternoon by the Congressional Limited for Baltimore, and to take boat down the bay on Saturday. Philip had arranged it all. It was now Tuesday, and the time for "improving his opportunity in life" was short. On this Tuesday afternoon he talked an hour to Phillida, but he could not possibly cause the conversation to swing around so as to be able, even with considerable violence, to make the transition he desired. He first let her lead, and she talked to him about the East and the queer ways of the yellow Mongolians she remembered. These memories of early childhood, in the blessed period when care and responsibility had not yet disturbed the spirit's freedom, brought her a certain relief from gnawing reflections. When she tired it was his turn to lead, and he soon slipped into his old grooves and entertained her with stories of the marvelous prices fetched by Mazarin Bibles, and with accounts of people who had discovered "fourteeners" in out-of-the-way places, and such like lore of the old book-shop. All the time he was tormented by a despairing under-thought that love-making was just as far from book-collecting as it was from Phillida's Oriental memories. At length the under-thought suppressed the upper ones, and he paused and looked out of the window and drew his small form down on the chair, assuming his favorite attitude, while he supported his right elbow with his left hand and absent-mindedly held the fingers of the right hand near his lips as though to support an imaginary cigar. "Philip," said the invalid, embarrassed by the silence, "I envy you your interest in books." "You do?" Philip moved his right hand as he might have done in removing a cigar from the mouth and turned to Phillida. "Why?" "It saves you from being crushed by the immensities as you call them. I suppose it has consoled you in many a trouble, and no doubt it has kept you from the miseries of falling in love." She laid her thin hand on the arm of her chair as she spoke. "Kept me from falling in love," gasped Philip, aware that his now-or-never had arrived, "how do you know that?" "I never heard that you were in love with anybody. Excuse me if I have trodden on forbidden ground." "I have loved but one woman, and I'm such a coward that I never had the courage to tell her," he said abruptly, at the same time restoring his imaginary cigar to his mouth. "That's a pity," she said. "What a figure I'd cut as a lover! Little, lank, nervous, eccentric in manner, peculiar in my opinions, lacking resolution to undertake anything worth while, frittering away my time in gathering rare books--what woman would think of me?" "Philip, you have many excellent qualities, and I shouldn't wonder if marriage would be good for you," said Phillida, in that motherly tone that only a young woman can assume easily.