"But I congratulate you truly, heartily," he added.
"Thank you, Perry," I answered. "In spite of your trifling way of
regarding women, I hope that some day you may find another as good as
Mary Warden."
"The same to you, Mark," said he.
"The same to me?" I cried, with a touch of resentment.
"Of course," he replied. "I says to myself to-night, 'I hope Mark is
as fortunate,' I says, when I saw them two a----"
"What two?" I exclaimed, lifting myself half out of my chair in my
eagerness.
"Why, Tim and her," Perry answered. "Ain't you heard it yet, Mark? Am
I the first to know?"
"Tim and her," I cried. "Tim and Mary?"
"Yes," said Perry.
He saw now that he was imparting strange news to me. In my sudden
agitation he divined that that news had struck hard home, and that I
was not blessed with his own philosophic nature. The smile left his
face. He stepped to me, as I sat there in the chair staring vacantly
into the fire, and laid a hand on my shoulder.
"I thought of course you knowd it," he said gently.
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