ness and flavor of these spiritual greetings, but as the fog of the false Bohemia gradually encompassed her she came to accept them as love’s true and proper greeting.
Bob came in without a word, smiled, kissed her neatly but noiselessly, took up a paper and sat down. In the hall room the old maid held her two plugs of cotton poised, filled with anxiety.
Jessie dropped lobster and knife and ran to him with frightened eyes.
“What’s the matter, Bob, are you ill?”
“Not at all, dear.”
“Then what’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing.”
Hearken, brethren. When She-who-has-a-right-to-ask interrogates you concerning a change she finds in your mood answer her thus: Tell her that you, in a sudden rage, have murdered your grandmother; tell her that you have robbed orphans and that remorse has stricken you; tell her your fortune is swept away; that you are beset by enemies, by bunions, by any kind of malevolent fate; but do not, if peace and happiness are worth as much as a grain of mustard seed to you—do not answer her “Nothing.”
Jessie went back to the lobster in silence. She cast looks of darkest suspicion at Bob. He had never acted that way before.
[37]
