Part 54

"Wait! That won't do any good! You'll come back!"

"N-no, I won't----"

"Yes, you will. Or I--I'll f-follow you----"

"What?"

"One or the other! We can't help it, I tell you. You don't understand, but I do. And the moment I knew your name was George----"

"What the deuce has that got to do with anything?" he demanded, turning red in spite of his amazement.

"Waves!" she said passionately, "psychic waves! I--somehow--knew that he'd be named George----"

"Who'd be named George?"

"He! The--man... And if I ever--if you ever expect me to--to c-care for a man all over overalls----"

"But I don't--Good Heavens!--I don't expect you to care for--for overalls----"

"Then why do you wear them?" she asked in tremulous indignation.

The young man, galvanized, sprang from his chair and began running about, taking little, short, distracted steps. "Either," he said, "I need mental treatment immediately, or I'll wake up toward morning.... I--don't know what you're trying to say to me. I came here to--to p-paste----"

"That machine sent you!" she said. "The minute I got a spark you started----"

"Do you think I'm a motor? Spark! Do you think I----"

"Yes, I do. You couldn't help it; I know it was my own fault, and this-- this is the dreadful punishment--g-glued to a t-table top--with a man named George----"

"What!!!"

"Yes," she said passionately, "everything disobedient I have done has brought lightning retribution. I was forbidden to go into the laboratory; I disobeyed and--you came to hang wall paper! I--I took a b-book--which I had no business to take, and F-fate glues me to your horrid table and holds me fast till a man named George comes in...."

Flushed, trembling, excited, she made a quick and dramatic gesture of despair; and a ripping sound rent the silence.

"Are you pasted to that table?" faltered the young man, aghast.

"Yes, I am. And it's utterly impossible for you to aid me in the slightest, except by pretending to ignore it."

"But you--you can't remain there!"

"I can't help remaining here," she said hotly, "until you go."

"Then I'd better----"

"No! You shall not go! I--I won't have you go away--disappear somewhere in the city. Certainty is dreadful enough, but it's better than the awful suspense of knowing you are somewhere in the world, and are sure to come back sometime----"

"But I don't want to come back!" he exclaimed indignantly. "Why should I wish to come back? Have I said--acted--done--looked--Why should you imagine that I have the slightest interest in anything or in--in--anybody in this house?"

"Haven't you?"

"No!... And I cannot ignore your--your amazing--and intensely f-flattering fear that I have d-designs--that I desire--in other words, that I--er--have dared to cherish impossible aspirations in connection with a futile and absurd hope that one day you might possibly be induced to listen to any tentative suggestion of mine concerning a matrimonial alliance----"

He choked and turned a dull red.