And then all the next day as
she tried to work nothing but Oliver, Oliver, running through her mind
softshoed like a light and tireless runner, crumbling all proper dignity
and good resolutions away from her, little hard pebble by little hard
pebble, till she had finally given up altogether, called up Vanamee and
Company on the telephone and asked, with her heart in her mouth, if Mr.
Oliver Crowe were there. The reply that came seemed unreal somehow--she had
been so sure he would be and every nerve in her body had been so strung to
wonder at what she was going to say or do when he finally answered, that
the news that he had left three weeks before brought her down to earth as
suddenly as if she had been tripped. All she could think of was that it
must be because of her that Oliver had left the company--and illogically
picture a starving Oliver painfully wandering the streets of New York and
gazing at the food displayed in restaurant windows with lost and hopeless
eyes.
Then she shook herself--what nonsense--he must be at Melgrove. She couldn't
call him up at Melgrove, though, he mightn't be there when she 'phoned and
then his family would answer and what his family must think of her now,
when they'd been so perfectly lovely when she and Oliver were first
engaged--she shivered a little--no, that wouldn't do.
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