"B m--B m--B m--."

"Excuse me," she said, hastily. "They are calling me on the wire," and immediately answered, and began taking a message.

Meanwhile, to him had come a reaction, and he was in a state of total collapse. Before she had finished receiving that message of only ten words, he had drawn himself dejectedly to his feet, and was looking for his hat.

"I--I really--I must go, you know!" he faltered, blushing, as Nattie glanced up at him. "I--I fear I have intruded now--but I--I--" he stopped short, unable to find an ending to his sentence.

"I'm always glad of company," Nattie said, but a little distantly, as she gave "O. K." on the wire.

"I--I--really, you are very kind, you know," stammered Quimby. "I--I pa.s.s here on the way to dinner, you see--from the office, you know,"--he eked out his meagre income by writing in a lawyer's office--"where, 'pon my word, I ought to have been now. But it's--it's such a pleasure to see you--you know that--where can my hat be?"

All this time he had been looking around for his hat, and now Nattie fished it out of the waste basket, into which he had unwittingly dropped it. Taking it with many apologies, he bowed himself confusedly and ungracefully out, and went away, wondering if he would ever be able to get himself up to such a pitch again, and resolving, if it proved possible, that it should not occur next time where there was one of those aggravating "sounders."

"Now, I hope," thought Nattie, as she watched his retreating form, "that he is not going to make an idiot of himself! Not only because he is as good a fellow as he is a blundering one, and I wouldn't for the world hurt his feelings, but also because it would be dreadfully uncomfortable to have a rejected lover wandering around in the same house with one!"

And Nattie, judging from his late conduct that the contingency referred to was likely to occur, resolved to be careful and not give him any opportunity to express his feelings, and furthermore, to kindly and cautiously teach him the meaning of the word Friendship, and particularly to define the broad distinction between that and Love.

But circ.u.mstances are mulish things, and not to be governed at will, as Nattie was soon to discover.

A few evenings after she called in to see Cyn, who happened to be out.

But she was momentarily expected to return, as Mrs. Simonson said, so Nattie concluded to wait, and sat down at the piano. Not noticing she had left the door partly open, and never dreaming of approaching danger, she began to play, when suddenly, the hesitating voice of Quimby broke in upon the strains of the "First Kiss" waltz.

"I--may I come in?" he asked. "I--I beg your pardon, but I knocked several times, you know, and you didn't hear at all."

Nattie would gladly have refused the invitation he asked, but could think of no possible excuse for so doing, and was therefore compelled to say,

"Yes--come in, I expect Cyn every moment."

Availing himself of this permission, Quimby entered, balanced his hat on the edge of an alb.u.m, and seating himself in a chair, seized a round on either side as if he was in danger of blowing away, and stared at her without a word.

"It has been a lovely day, hasn't it?" Nattie said at last, beginning to find the silence embarra.s.sing, and reverting to Mrs. Simonson's safe topic.

"Yes--exactly so!" Quimby answered, strengthening his grasp on the chair in a vain endeavor to summon the requisite courage to avail himself of this rare opportunity of pouring out his feelings.

Nattie tried him again on another safe topic.

"Cyn and I dined together to-day."

"I--I can't eat!" burst forth Quimby in accents of despair.

"Can't you?" said Nattie, devoutly wishing Cyn would come. "I am very sorry, I hope you are not dyspeptic."

"No, no!" he answered, his eyes almost starting from his head between his determination to wind himself up to the point, and the tightness of his grasp on the chair. "It's--it's my heart, you know!"

"You don't mean to say you have heart disease?" said Nattie, seeing danger fast approaching, and taking refuge in obtusity.

"No; I--I beg pardon--not a--not a bodily heart disease, you know, but a mental one!" and he relaxed his grasp on the chair with one hand to tug at his necktie as if being hung, and disliking the sensation.

"That is something I never heard of," Nattie said dryly; then thinking, "I'll drown him in music," she asked hastily,

"Do you like the First Kiss?"

The bounce of an India rubber ball is no comparison to the agility with which Quimby jumped from his chair at this question.

"Oh! Bless my soul! Wouldn't I?" he gasped.

"I will play it to you," exclaimed Nattie instantly aware of the indiscretion of her question, and she thundered as loud as she could on the piano, while Quimby, with a very red face, subsided into the chair again. But not long did he remain subsided; whether it was the music that inspired im, or a desperate determination that nerved him, he suddenly sprang up, and with one stride was beside her, exclaiming excitedly,

"No! That is--I beg pardon--but please do not play any more just now.

There is something I must say to you! Oh! I can't express myself! It all comes upon me with a rush when I am alone, but now, at this supreme moment, I cannot tell you how I a--"

"Excuse me, but I am afraid I cannot remain now," hastily interrupted Nattie, feeling that something must be done to stop him, and adopting the first expedient that suggested itself. "I just happened to recollect I left my gas burning in close proximity to the lace curtains, and I must go immediately and attend to it."

With these words, Nattie rushed away, half amused and half annoyed, leaving him to stare after her with a blank and rueful face, to ask himself how any fellow could get on amid such drawbacks, to decide that proposing was a dreadful strain on the nerves, but to resolve his next attempt should be a success, if he had to inaugurate previously a series of private rehearsals. For although abashed and discomfited by his repeated failures to make his feelings understood, he was more in love than ever.

CHAPTER VI.

COLLAPSE OF THE ROMANCE.

"B m--B m--B m--N--N--N--Oh! where are you, N? Where is the little girl at B m--B m--B m?"

Such were the sounds that greeted Nattie's ears, as she entered the office the morning after her adventure with the love-lorn Quimby; and immediately she ceased to speculate on the probable embarra.s.sment that must necessarily attend their not-to-be-avoided next meeting, and interrupted "C's" solitary conversation, by saying,

"What is the matter with you this morning? Here I am, N."

"G. M., my dear. I'm off, and wanted to say good-by before I went,"

responded "C."

"Off?" questioned Nattie, with a sudden fall in her mental temperature.

"Yes, I am going to a station five miles below to subst.i.tute, to-day.

The operator there is obliged to go away, and couldn't find any one competent to do his work, and as there was a fellow that could do mine, he comes here and I go there."

"Oh, dear! what shall I do all day?" said Nattie, sinking into a chair, very much aggrieved.

"I am very sorry, but I couldn't well avoid accommodating him. But what will you do when I leave entirely, if you can't get along without me one day? happy I, to be so necessary to your existence!"

"But there is no prospect of your leaving at present, is there?" asked Nattie, forgetting in her alarm at such a possibility to challenge the last of his remark.

"There is some probability of it now," "C" responded. "I will tell you all about it to-morrow. I may come nearer to you; near enough even for you to see that twinkle."

"You don't mean you have a prospect of an office here in the city?"

questioned Nattie, not knowing whether she would be glad or sorry if such were the case.