CHAPTER XII
FOR three days and nights I wandered over the ruins of my life, back and forth, helpless, almost driven mad by the horror of it; and then at last Dr. Maynard came. I had not realised that he had been out of town. I had been so stunned by Alec's announcement that I had not missed him. He had been down to Baltimore for three days attending some sort of a medical conference and I had not known that he had been outside of Hilton.
Dr. Maynard and I were as good friends as ever now. Three whole months had passed since that Christmas Day when he discovered my sofa-pillow on his desk, and I had come to the conclusion that he had been merely surprised into his queer behaviour that day. He had never shown a scrap of the same emotion since. I remember the very next time I saw him he had dropped that newly acquired gravity of his. Somehow I had been disappointed. When he referred to my pillow in his old natural, jovial way, I had been hurt. "I tell you what," he had said, "I feel like an undergraduate again. Nice girl like Lucy Vars making me a pillow for my room! Won't you come to my Class-Day?" he had laughed. It was I who had flushed then. I managed to throw back some sort of a careless rejoinder, but I tell you, I didn't waste any more madly happy moments on Dr. Maynard. Grey-haired old bachelor! He was old enough to be my uncle anyhow! We had resumed
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