worth--for identification," she said dryly, "although Bobby cannot
remember about the letter. He thinks he went once with his father to a
photographer and had a picture taken, but he cannot remember seeing
it afterward." She was holding them in her hand, and Randolph almost
mechanically took them from her and put them in his pocket. He would
not, perhaps, have noticed his own brusqueness had she not looked a
little surprised, and, he thought, annoyed. "Are you quite sure you
won't lose them?" she said gently. "Perhaps I had better keep them for
you."
"I shall seal them up and put them in the bank safe," he said quickly.
He could not tell whether his sudden resolution was an instinct or the
obstinacy that often comes to an awkward man. "But," he added, coloring,
"I shall always regret the loss of the portmanteau, for it was the means
of bringing us together."
"I thought it was the umbrella," said Miss Avondale dryly.
She had once before halted him on the perilous edge of sentiment by a
similar cynicism, but this time it cut him deeply. For he could not
be blind to the fact that she treated him like a mere boy, and in
dispelling the illusions of his instincts and beliefs seemed as if
intent upon dispelling his illusions of HER; and in her half-smiling
abstraction he read only the well-bred toleration of one who is
beginning to be bored. He made his excuses early and went home.
Nevertheless, although regretting he had not left her the letter and
photograph, he deposited them in the bank safe the next day, and tried
to feel that he had vindicated his character for grown-up wisdom.
Then, in his conflicting emotions, he punished himself, after the
fashion of youth, by avoiding the beloved one's presence for several
days. He did this in the belief that it would enable him to make up his
mind whether to reveal his real feelings to her, and perhaps there
was the more alluring hope that his absence might provoke some
manifestations of sentiment on her part. But she made no sign. And then
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