You are a great, bold, strong player, fit to sit
down to a game with the -best."
A moment later it struck him that he had appropriated
too much. If the professor had paid him a visit
and made a wonderful announcement, he, Coleman,
had not been the engine of it. And then he enunciated
clearly something in his mind which, even in a
vague form, had been responsible for much of his early
elation. Marjory herself had compassed this thing.
With shame he rejected a first wild and preposterous
idea that she had sent her father to him. He reflected
that a man who for an instant could conceive
such a thing was a natural-born idiot. With an equal
feeling, he rejected also an idea that she could have
known anything of her father's purpose. If she had
known of his purpose, there would have been no visit.
What, then, was the cause? Coleman soon decided
that the professor had witnessed some demonstration
of Marjory's emotion which had been sufficiently
severe in its character to force him to the extraordinary
visit. But then this also was wild and preposterous.
That coldly beautiful goddess would not
have given a demonstration of emotion over Rufus
Coleman sufficiently alarming to have forced her
father on such an errand. That was impossible. No,
he was wrong; Marjory even indirectly, could not be
connected with the visit. As he arrived at this decision,
the enthusiasm passed out of him and he wore
a doleful, monkish face.
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