she would have felt slight respect. In her subconsciousness, as a matter of fact, Mary began to harbour a slight suspicion in regard to the reliability of the literature of disillusion.
Byron's name, sung over and over again in her mind, began also to weave contrapuntally a pattern of pain in her heart. He had promised to telephone. Why didn't he keep this promise? She could not tolerate the knowledge, she was beginning to realize, that he should be somewhere else while she was here. She wanted him near her always. Was love like this, that you began to suffer the moment you experienced it? Why didn't he telephone? Was he so indifferent that he could sleep? Several times she heard the bell tinkle in the adjoining room. Twice, she sped across the floor to answer it, in spite of the fact that the instrument was on the wall two steps from the principal librarian's desk.
You must be expecting a call, Mary, was Alice Langley's comment.
After this remark, although it cost her an agony of impatience, Mary permitted the bell to ring until some one in the inner office lifted the receiver, but this happened so frequently that it seemed incredible that not one of the calls should be for her. Presently a new anxiety beset her: considering the unisolated location of the telephone, she' would be unable to speak freely, to say what she wanted to say. What she principally wanted to say, she was now
