Next year perhaps, or the year after, he would sincerely fall in love with Margaret, and then everything would be different.
He was passing through the Square at the moment; and while he played with the idea of his marriage with Margaret, he found himself glancing expectantly at the car which was waiting in front of the Governor's door.

"I wonder if she is going out," he thought, while a superficial interest brightened the dull hours before him.

"It would be no more than she deserved if I were to go in and ask after her ankle." In obedience to the mocking impulse, he entered the gate and reached the steps just as Patty came out on the porch.

She was walking with ease, he noticed at once, and she wore again the red cape and the little hat with red wings.
"Oh," she exclaimed, "it is you!" "I stopped to ask after your ankle," he retorted with ironic gaiety.

"I am glad it doesn't keep you from walking." "That's the new way of treating a sprain," she replied calmly.