Part 53

"Harvard?" she repeated, bewildered.

"Yes; I was 1907."

"You!"

He looked down at his white overalls, smiling.

"Does that astonish you, Miss Carr?--you are Miss Carr, I suppose----"

"Sybilla--yes--we're--we're triplets," she stammered.

"The beauti--the--the Carr triplets! And you are one of them?" he exclaimed, delighted.

"Yes." Still bewildered, she sat there, looking at him. How extraordinary! How strange to find a Harvard man pasting paper! Dire misgivings flashed up within her.

"Who are you?" she asked tremulously. "Would you mind telling me your name. It--it isn't--George!"

He looked up in pleased surprise:

"So you know who I am?"

"N-no. But--it isn't George--is it?"

"Why, yes----"

"O-h!" she breathed. A sense of swimming faintness enveloped her: she swayed; but an unmistakable ripping noise brought her suddenly to herself.

"I am afraid you are tearing your skirt somehow," he said anxiously. "Let me----"

"No!"

The desperation of the negative approached violence, and he involuntarily stepped back.

For a moment they faced one another; the flush died out on her cheeks.

"If," she said, "your name actually is George, this--this is the most-- the most terrible punishment--" She closed her eyes with her fingers as though to shut out some monstrous vision.

"What," asked the amazed young man, "has my name to do with----"

Her hands dropped from her eyes; with horror she surveyed him, his paste- spattered overalls, his dingy white cap, his dinner pail.

"I--I won't marry you!" she stammered in white desperation. "I won't! If you're not a paper hanger you look like one! I don't care whether you're a Harvard man or not--whether you're playing at paper hanging or not--whether your name is George or not--I won't marry you--I won't! I won't!"

With the feeling that his senses were rapidly evaporating the young man sat down dizzily, and passed a paste-spattered but well-shaped hand across his eyes.

Sybilla set her lips and looked at him.

"I don't suppose," she said, "that you understand what I am talking about, but I've got to tell you at once; I can't stand this sort of thing."

"W-what sort of thing?" asked the young man, feebly.

"Your being here in this house--with me----"

"I'll be very glad to go----"