Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/162

 Wilkins lying, pitiful, at death’s door, then she entered the parlor.

“Perhaps you’d like to go to your room,” she suggested. “Did you have your trunk sent here?”

“My room?… My room’s at the office.”

“But you can look after the paper and still stay here and be comfortable.”

He shook his head; his plans were made and they were unalterable as Mary discovered when she sought to dissuade him…. She, and others, would come to know that with him a resolution once taken was set as though in solid masonry.

“You’ll come for dinner?”

“No,” he said. “Uncle Dave and I always ate at the hotel.”

He fumbled with his hat uneasily, and Mary understood. “You want to go to the office,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Go, then, Angus, but remember, you are always welcome here. Come often. Come every day.”

He nodded in a preoccupied manner and passed out of the house. On the walk outside he encountered a girl, passed her without looking, unconscious of her presence, indifferent that she merited better treatment from his eyes….