The Fighting Chance

"Do you?"

"Of course I do. Everybody spoils you and so do I."

"Yes--I am rather in that way, I suppose."

"What way?"

"Oh--spoiled."

"Stephen!"

"Yes?"

And in a lower voice: "Please don't say such things--will you?"

"No."

"Especially to me."

"Especially to you. No, I won't, Sylvia."

And, after a hesitation, she continued sweetly: "I wonder what you were doing, all alone in that old house of yours, when I called you up?"

"I? Let me see. Oh, I was superintending some packing."

"Are you going off somewhere?"

"I think so."

"Where?"

"I don't know, Sylvia."

"Stephen, how absurd! You must know where you are going! If you mean that you don't care to tell me--"

"I mean--that."

"I decline to be snubbed. I'm shameless, and I wish to be informed. Please tell me."

"I'd rather not tell you."

"Very well. … Good-bye. … But don't ring off just yet, Stephen. … Do you think that, sometime, you would care to see--any people--I mean when you begin to go out again?"

"Who, for example?"

"Why, anybody?"

"No; I don't think I should care to."

"I wish you would care to. It is not well to let go every tie, drop everybody so completely. No man can do that to advantage. It would be so much better for you to go about a bit--see and be seen, you know; just to meet a few people informally; go to see some pretty girl you know well enough to--to--"

"To what? Make love to?"

"That would he very good for you," she said.

"But not for the pretty girl. Besides, I'm rather too busy to go about, even if I were inclined to."

"Are you really busy, Stephen?"

"Yes--waiting. That is the very hardest sort of occupation. And I'm obliged to be on hand every minute."

"But you said that you were going out of town."

"Did I? Well, I did not say it, exactly, but I am going to leave town."

"For very long?" she asked.

"Perhaps. I can't tell yet."

"Stephen, before you go--if you are going for a very, very long while--perhaps you will--you might care to say good-bye?"

"Do you think it best?"

"No," she said innocently; "but if you care--"

"Do you care to have me?"

"Yes, I do."

There was a silence; and when his voice sounded again it had altered: "I do not think you would care to see me, Sylvia. I--they say I am--I have--changed--since my--since a slight illness. I am not over it yet, not cured--not very well yet; and a little tired, you see--a little shaken. I am leaving New York to--to try once more to be cured. I expect to be well--one way or another--"