The Youngish Girl's answer was astonishingly tranquil. "I don't know,
I'm sure," she said. "That part of it isn't my business. All I know is
that I wrote the letter--and mailed it. It's Fate's move next."

"But maybe he never got the letter!" protested the Traveling
Salesman, buckling frantically at the straps of his sample-case.

"Very likely," the Youngish Girl answered calmly. "And if he never got
it, then Fate has surely settled everything perfectly definitely for
me--that way. The only trouble with that would be," she added
whimsically, "that an unanswered letter is always pretty much like an
unhooked hook. Any kind of a gap is apt to be awkward, and the hook
that doesn't catch in its own intended tissue is mighty apt to tear
later at something you didn't want torn."

"I don't know anything about that," persisted the Traveling Salesman,
brushing nervously at the cinders on his hat. "All I say is--maybe he's
married."

"Well, that's all right," smiled the Youngish Girl. "Then Fate would
have settled it all for me perfectly satisfactorily _that_ way. I
wouldn't mind at all his not being at the station. And I wouldn't
mind at all his being married. And I wouldn't mind at all his turning
out to be very, very old. None of those things, you see, would
interfere in the slightest with the memory of the--Voice or
the--chivalry of the broken hand. THE ONLY THING I'D MIND, I TELL
YOU, WOULD BE TO THINK THAT HE REALLY AND TRULY WAS THE MAN WHO WAS
MADE FOR ME--AND I MISSED FINDING IT OUT!--Oh, of course, I've
worried myself sick these past few months thinking of the audacity of
what I've done. I've got such a 'Sore Thought,' as you call it, that