However, at half past four the bell rang again, and a masculine
voice informed Annie, a moment later, that it would put its overcoat
here, because lately a dog had eaten a piece out of it and got most
awful indigestion.

The time it took Annie to get up the stairs again gave her a moment
so that she could breathe more naturally, and she went down very
deliberately and so dreadfully poised that at first he thought she
was not glad to see him.

"I came, you see," he said. "I intended to wait until to-morrow,
but I had a little time. But if you're doing anything--"

"I was reading Gibbon's 'Rome,'" she informed him. "I think every
one should know it. Don't you?"

"Good heavens, what for?" he inquired.

"I don't know." They looked at each other, and suddenly they laughed.

"I wanted to improve my mind," she explained. "I felt, last night,
that you-that you know so many things, and that I was frightfully
stupid."

"Do you mean to say," he asked, aghast, "that I--! Great Scott!"

Settled in the living-room, they got back rather quickly to their
status of the night before, and he was moved to confession.