He waited for the answer, and it seemed to him that it would never come.
"I am not engaged to any one, Mrs.Haldene, and I hope you will do me the favor to deny the report whenever you come across it." Patty had returned.

"It seems incredible that a young man may not call upon a young woman without their names becoming coupled matrimonially." "Nevertheless, he is regarded as extremely eligible." "I have often wondered over Haldene's regular Saturday night jag at the club," said John, stringing his count, "but I wonder no longer.
They say she never goes out Saturdays." Warrington heard the words, but the sense of them passed by.

He could realize only one thing, and that was, he loved Patty better than all the world.

He could accept his own defeat with philosophy, but another man's success!--could he accept that?
How strangely everything had changed in the last few days! He had never known real mental anguish; heartaches in others had always afforded him mild amusement and contempt.

It was one thing, he reflected, to write about human emotions; it was entirely another thing to live and act them.