What a young man thinks in this mood may be imagined, but it never can be known. And the writer does not live with the wisdom or grace to translate his deep, singing dumbness into words. Presently he went back to his task, working now with swiftness and concentration, as if his whole future depended upon finishing what he was doing in the shortest possible time. He finished in thirty minutes, disappeared into the rear of the bank and reappeared five minutes later through the side door. He was brushed, groomed and freshened to the last degree of elegance. His homespun fitted him with an air. He stepped with a long, prideful stride--and got no farther than the corner of the next street. Here he halted, looking all possible ways at once--nobody in sight; plenty of people, you understand, but not the girl. He had seen her pass this corner. He waited. Wherever she had gone, she should be returning by this time. This one and that one hailed him as they went by. A fellow he knew stopped and engaged him in conversation. He was annoyed. Suppose the girl appeared, how was he to escape from this ass? The ass finally took in the situation and moved on, looking back as he turned the next corner. George looked at his watch--after five! She certainly should be going home by this time. Everybody in sight was on his way home. Suppose he had missed her; suppose she had gone around the other way! Jumping cats, what a fool he had been, wasting time here! He started off, walking rapidly but still with that magnificent, stiff-legged strut. Some one came alongside, caught his arm and whirled him half around. “Where you going in such a hurry, Cutter?” This was Charley Harman, a friend, but this was no time for friends to be butting in. “Home,” said George briefly, by way of implying that he was not inviting company home with him. “So am I, but I never walk fast when I’m going home. Let’s get a drink in here”; halting as they came opposite a drug store. “Take one for me,” Cutter said with a short laugh and moved on so hurriedly that Harman took the hint. Nothing else happened until he reached the place where Wiggs Street opened on the square. He stared down the flower-blooming vista of this street. He could see men watering their front yards and the women watering their flowers. He could hear the boom of his father’s voice half a block down, talking to some one in the next yard. He saw Mrs. Adams sitting, large and amorphous, in a rocking-chair on her front porch. He supposed that she also was waiting for Helen.