Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/125

 and talking with a red-faced middle-aged man was no more like Peggy-in-the-Rain than day was like night. His emotion following the discovery was difficult of analysis, being partly relief and partly disappointment, but there had been nothing complicated about the fierce, blind rush of jealousy that had overmastered him when he had first caught sight of the girl. That had been plain and primitive, and it had left him with shaking hands and hot cheeks. He guided his car to the front of a hotel, went inside and dropped into a chair, and while the drink he ordered was being prepared he considered himself with something closely bordering on dismay.

What in Heaven's name had gotten into him? He had been attracted by women before; he had been in love before; one affair had even been for a time rather desperate; but never had a woman taken possession, of him as Peggy had. It seemed to him uncanny, and the more he thought of it, the more he realized his subjection, the more uneasy he became. There was a fair leaven of New England caution in his make-up, and the idea of losing control of himself was at once distasteful and alarming. A waiter brought his