"She lambasted me, all right. I know I'm not her kind. But what does she think she's going to get?" His anger flared up again for a moment. "Does she expect to find a prince in that precious school of hers? Or perhaps she thinks she'll meet him when she goes to work in Wall Street. That's so, she might, and he'd fall to her, all right." He grew jealous at his picture and fear overtook him; for as Mrs. Pickens had said, there was more than one beau for a pretty girl, and Hertha was more than pretty--she was a woman whom a man could not forget. "I've got to have her," he said, looking beyond the reach of the room out into the space in which Hertha's self stood out before him. "I can't see anything without her. You're mighty good to me," he added as he turned to go, "it was a lucky day when Jim Watson steered me up these steps." "I haven't done anything," Mrs. Pickens made haste to answer, "but I promise after this I'll do what I can." At ten o'clock she knocked at his door. He opened to her at once, and, seeing his face drop, she knew that he had hoped for a word from another visitor. "You'll see her at breakfast, Dick; that's all I could get for you. I think she's more hurt than you or I can understand." Dick sat at his open window until midnight, and tossed on his bed for a long time after that. He remembered the afternoon of yesterday when together they had sat in the boat and had walked among the flowers, quietly living in the spirit of the spring. And now, to-night a thunderstorm had come and drenched them both! He liked his imagery, and, tired of cursing himself, turned over at last and went to sleep. She did appear at breakfast the next morning dressed for her school, and looking as she always looked, quite composed and very lovely. But when at the door he stopped to say good-by, she, for the first time, went out and walked to the car with him. All the way he did not say a word, so fearful was he of uttering the wrong one. They stood on the corner, both silent, till her car came in sight. "I hope you'll have a pleasant trip," she said, holding out her hand to him. "Thank you," he answered, shaking the hand limply. So fearful was he that he would offend her by holding it a moment too long that he scarcely grasped it at all. But, save for this slight error, certainly on the safe side of the account, he behaved with the utmost correctness. She boarded the car and passed from his sight. But to the inward eye of memory she stood, illumined with the golden light of a lover's worship, aureoled, winged, a creature for the heaven of the enraptured gods. CHAPTER XXVIII