"What is it? Is
something the matter?"
"Nothing. Nothing, dear." She dropped her hands from her face. Her cheeks
were deep crimson, and she bit her lip with determination.
"Oh, but there is! Why, you've tears in your eyes. Are you faint? What is
it?"
"It is only--only----" Miss Sherwood choked, then cast a swift glance at
the profile of the melancholy young man. The perfectly dismal decorum of
this gentleman seemed to inspire her to maintain her own gravity. "It is
only that it seemed such a pity about that fly," she explained. From where
they sat the journalistic silhouette was plainly visible, and both Fisbee
and Miss Sherwood looked toward it often, the former with the wistful,
apologetic fidelity one sees in the eyes of an old setter watching his
master.
When the lecture was over many of the audience pressed forward to shake
the Hon. Mr. Halloway's hand. Tom Martin hooked his arm in that of the
sallow gentleman and passed out with him.
"Mighty humanizin' view Kedge took of that there insect," remarked Mr.
Martin. "I don't recollect I ever heard of no mournfuller error than
that'n. I noticed you spoke of Halloway as a 'thinker,' without mentioning
what kind. I didn't know, before, that you were as cautious a man as
that."
"Does your satire find nothing sacred, Martin?" returned the other, "not
even the Honorable Kedge Halloway?"
"I wouldn't presume," replied old Tom, "to make light of the catastrophe
that overtook the heedless fly.
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