"
"Yes;--that is the reason. But still it seems almost unnatural. I
often wonder when the time will come that I shall be quietly at home
again. I have to be back in my office in London this day week, and
yet I have not had a single hour to myself since I have been at
Killaloe. But I will certainly ride over and see your mother. You
will be at home on Wednesday I suppose."
"Yes,--I shall be at home."
Upon that he got up and went away, but again in the evening he found
himself near her. Perhaps there is no position more perilous to a
man's honesty than that in which Phineas now found himself;--that,
namely, of knowing himself to be quite loved by a girl whom he almost
loves himself. Of course he loved Violet Effingham; and they who talk
best of love protest that no man or woman can be in love with two
persons at once. Phineas was not in love with Mary Flood Jones; but
he would have liked to take her in his arms and kiss her;--he would
have liked to gratify her by swearing that she was dearer to him than
all the world; he would have liked to have an episode,--and did,
at the moment, think that it might be possible to have one life in
London and another life altogether different at Killaloe. "Dear
Mary," he said as he pressed her hand that night, "things will get
themselves settled at last, I suppose.
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