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Rh knocked me down with my breath all gone. Alec waited and I tried to jump up, as it were, and speak, so he would know I wasn't dead.

"Why, Alec Vars!" I managed to gasp, and then the horror of his news flashed over me. The man I loved best in the whole world had just told me that he was engaged to be married to a girl whom I abhorred! I wanted to scream; I wanted to bury my face in my pillow and cry; I wanted to say, "Oh, go away, go away, Alexander Vars. Leave me alone. I want to die." But instead I remarked quite calmly, "You engaged? To Edith Campbell? My goodness, but I'm surprised." And then warned by the choke in my voice, I switched off into something commonplace. "Say, would you mind," I said jovially enough, "just removing your hundred and seventy-five pounds off my left foot there? You're crushing the bones in it."

Alec leaned forward and kissed me hard.

"You little brick of a Bobbie! I knew you'd take it like a soldier."

I gulped down a disgusting sob.

"But wasn't I the goose," I hurried like mad to say, for I was afraid I'd break down and bawl like a baby before his very eyes, "wasn't I the little goose to think it was the business that made you so happy?"

"Oh, the business," Alec announced, "is bound to succeed now."

"Sure," I broke in hastily, "just bound to. It's awfully nice, all around, isn't it? And I—" I floundered on, "I am just—just pleased!"

The hall clock struck one. I grasped the blessed sound like a sinking man.

"Is that twelve-thirty, one, or one-thirty? I