Van
Anden was exasperating, more so this evening than ever before. And
the more his judgment became convinced that he had blundered, the more
vexed did he become.
"Confound everybody!" he exclaimed at length, in utter disgust. "What
on earth do I care for the contemptible puppy, that I should waste
thought on him. What possessed the fellow to come whining around me
to-night, and set me in a whirl of disagreeable thought? I ought to
have knocked him down for his insufferable impudence in dragging me
out publicly in that meeting." This he said aloud; but something made
answer down in his heart: "Oh, it's very silly of you to talk in this
way. You know perfectly well that Dr. Van Anden is not a contemptible
puppy at all. He is a thoroughly educated, talented physician, a
formidable rival, and you know it; and he didn't whine in the least
this evening; he made a very manly apology for what was not so very
bad after all, and you more than half suspect yourself of admiring
him."
"Fiddlesticks!" said Dr. Douglass aloud to all this information, and
went off to his room in high dudgeon.
The next two days seemed to be very busy ones to one member of
the Ried family. Dr. Douglass sometimes appeared at meal time and
sometimes not, but the parlor and the piazza were quite deserted,
and even his own room saw little of him.
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