with self-control clamped upon him again so that he could not do what he wanted to.
He longed to seize, in each of his own, her little brown hands releasing the bowl; he longed to draw her, by her hands, to him and then suddenly grasp her in his arms, crushing not her—oh, he would not hurt her at all—but he would crush the ironed, provoking smoothness of her fresh gingham dress.
Instead of all this (and this would not have been all!) he had to say, because he had slept, "I was awfully informal with you, yesterday." (But nothing to what he would do to-day!)
"I'm glad you were," she said; and asked: "You slept?"
"The clock around," he admitted. Where was his office Ellen in this blue and white cotton dress? Here, or he could not long for this girl so; impossible, simply from having sailed with her and seen her again this morning, to long so for a stranger; but he felt and, in spite of his having slept, he said:
"You're a sort of a sister of Ellen Powell, aren't you?"
"If you want me to be," she said; and crimson confusion overcame her.
"I don't," he denied swiftly and walked out, by himself.
What message might be for him this morning? What from Lida or of Stanley Alban? Might Lida, in these three days, have sent for him; or Stanley Alban died?
"I phoned to Mackinac," Ellen told him, when he returned. "There were no messages." It was like the office only for a moment; at the next, her mother and sisters
