"
"Who should know it better than I, that am a great hulking,
bad-tempered fellow twice her age!" groaned the doctor. "Yet, Sophy,
_I_ could make her happier than Jelnik could. Dear and lovely as she
is, she couldn't make him happy, either--Don't you think I'm a fool,
Sophy?"
"No," said I, smiling wanly; "I don't."
"This business of being in love is a damnable arrangement. Here was
I," he grumbled, "busy, reasonably happy, with a sound mind in a
sound body, and a digestion that was a credit to me. And along comes
a girl, and everything's changed! My work doesn't fill my days, my
food is bitter in my mouth, and I wake up in the night saying to
myself, 'You fool, you're chasing rainbows!' Sophy, don't you ever
fall in love with somebody you know you can't have! It's hell!"
I didn't tell him I knew it.
One of his men came to tell him he was needed urgently. As it meant
a thirty-mile trip and the night was cold, I made him wait for a cup
of coffee and an omelet."
"Miss Smith--"
"You said 'Sophy' a while ago. 'Sophy' sounds all right to me."
"It sounds fine to me, too, Sophy." And he reached out and seized my
hand with a grip that made me wince.
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