"He wants to marry her?" repeated Drene, in a curiously still voice.

"He's mad about her. He's abject. It's no secret among his
friends. Men like that--and of that age--sometimes arrive at such a
terminal--men with Graylock's record sometimes get theirs. She has
given him a run, believe me, and he's brought up with a crash
against a stone wall. He is lying there all doubled up at her feet
like a rabbit with a broken back. There was nothing left for him to
do but lie there. He's lying there still, with one of her little feet
on his bull neck. All the town knows it."

"He wants to marry her," repeated Drene, as though to himself.

"She may not take him at that. They're queer--some women. I suppose
she'd jump at it if she were not straight. But there's another
thing--" Guilder looked curiously at Drene. "Some people think she's
rather crazy about you."

Drene gazed into space.

"But that wouldn't hurt her," added Guilder, in his calm, pleasant
voice. "She's a straight little thing--white and straight. She could
come to no harm through a man like you."

Drene continued to stare at space.

"So," continued the other, confident, "when she recovers from a
natural and childlike infatuation for you she'll marry somebody. . .
Possibly even such a man as Graylock might make her happy. You