"New York is open for staying in about this time, I believe."
Jimmy was silent. He had done his best to fight a tendency to
become depressed and had striven by means of a light tone to keep
himself resolutely cheerful, but the girl's apparently total
indifference to him was too much for his spirits. One of the
young men who had had to pick up the heart he had flung at Ann's
feet and carry it away for repairs had once confided to an
intimate friend, after the sting had to some extent passed, that
the feelings of a man who made love to Ann might be likened to
the emotions which hot chocolate might be supposed to entertain
on contact with vanilla ice-cream. Jimmy, had the comparison been
presented to him, would have endorsed its perfect accuracy. The
wind from the sea, until now keen and bracing, had become merely
infernally cold. The song of the wind in the rigging, erstwhile
melodious, had turned into a damned depressing howling.
"I used to be as sentimental as any one a few years ago," said
Ann, returning to the dropped subject. "Just after I left
college, I was quite maudlin. I dreamed of moons and Junes and
loves and doves all the time. Then something happened which made
me see what a little fool I was. It wasn't pleasant at the time,
but it had a very bracing effect. I have been quite different
ever since. It was a man, of course, who did it. His method was
quite simple.
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