Well, and that was the most asinine consideration of all. Because
of course he couldn't do one thing or the other. As long as
the man who wasn't Rose's husband remained alive in him, he'd
protest--struggle--clamor for his old freedom. And yet, as long as the
million tiny cords that bound hum, Gulliver-like, went back to Rose,
talk of breaking them was sophomoric foolishness. He'd better go home!
The building was pretty well deserted by now, and against the silence he
heard the buzzer in his telephone switchboard proclaiming insistently
that some one was trying to get him on the telephone. His hour of
recollection hadn't been a success, but the invasion of it irritated him
none the less. He thought at first he wouldn't answer. He didn't care
who was on the wire. He didn't want to talk to anybody. But no one can
resist the mechanical bell-ringers they use in exchanges nowadays--the
even-spaced ring and wait, ring and wait, so manifestly incapable of
discouragement. At the end of forty-five seconds, he snatched open his
door, punched the jack into its socket, caught up the head-piece, and
bellowed, "Hello!" into the dangling transmitter.
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