"Send me up the pretty one. I couldn't
stand the red-haired girl just now. I've got an important deal on
hand. She might queer my luck. Do that for me, old chap. Tell her as
you go out, and don't forget--the pretty one."
"Right you are!" laughed Hadley. "I'll see you to-night at dinner. Ta
ta!" He was going out when he turned round at the door. "Say--don't
forget your virtuous resolution. Don't make love to the pretty
typewriter."
The door slammed and Stafford was alone.
For some time after his friend disappeared, the railroad man sat idly
turning over the mass of papers accumulating on the desk. There was a
busy day before him--a directors' meeting at 2 o'clock, people to see
at his office. But just now his thoughts were not on his work. He was
cogitating on what he had just admitted to Hadley. Yes, that was it.
The truth was out now. He had never acknowledged it before, even to
himself. He was tired of his bachelor life. He wanted a wife.
What had all his success been to him? An empty kind of satisfaction,
after all. He had made money, more money than he knew what to do with,
but it had not brought him real happiness. How could he be happy, when
there was no one to share his happiness, his success? His parents were
dead; he had no brothers or sisters. He was all alone in the world,
and the older he got the more he was beginning to realize how isolated
his life was. He had hosts of so-called friends--jolly good fellows of
both sexes, who were ready enough to help him spend his money; but
what was such friendship as that worth?
Yet Fred might be right, after all.
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