"
"Oh!--Yes, naturally, but--"
"Well, I think this is the call plainly due me from my Reunion party
last year."
"No! Not at all! At the same time, it has been since that day that I
have had you on my mind so much."
He said this in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice, but a certain
nervousness had broken through into his manner. He took a turn up and
down the room, and returned suddenly to his seat.
"Oh, have you had me on your mind?"
"Do you remember my saying that day," he began, resolutely, "that I was
not sure whether I had got the better of you or you had got the better
of me?"
"I remember very well."
"Well, I have come to tell you that--you have won."
He had plucked a pencil from the arsenal of them in his breast-pocket,
and with it was beating a noiseless tattoo on his open left palm. With
an effort he met her eyes.
"I say you were right," came from him nervously. "Don't you hear?"
"Was I? Won't you tell me just what you mean?"
"Don't you know?"
"Really I don't think I do. You see, when I used that expression that
day, I was speaking only of the editorship--"
"But I was speaking of a theory of life.
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