He stood beside the bookcase and looked at her, across the room, where she sat between the windows, the little smile, only, perhaps fainter now, still hovering about her lips.
"I understand, dear," she said simply.
The relief her words carried to him filled him with as keen and as complete a joy as he had ever felt.
"I knew you would," he said; "I knew you would--you"re so sensible about things."
The smile flickered an instant brighter as she replied, with a little pout, "Oh, Jack, never call a girl "_sensible_": it"s as bad as calling her "_nice_," and that"s like throwing a stone at her."
He laughed, a little stridently.
"Come here, dear; sit here and tell me all about it." She made room for him beside her and held the cushions against the wall till he sank among them.
"Is it your father, dear; did you tell _him_?" she asked quietly.
"No, it isn"t," he blurted, frankly. "I wish to Heaven it were."
"So it"s you; just yourself; oh, Jack!"
How grateful he was for that little note of gay mockery in her voice she never knew.
"Can"t you tell me all about it?"
He did not answer at once.
"Then shall _I_ tell _you_?" she said. He glanced at her appealingly, but she was still smiling.
"Well--let"s see,--where does it begin? Oh, yes. There was once a boy came to college, and he fell in with other boys and had the best sort of time till he met an ogre--no, I mean an ogress--and after that he didn"t have a good time at all----"
He was smiling now, with her.
"----And in some foolish way he began to think he liked the ogress--whom he shouldn"t have liked--and she, well, she liked him too, and they became pals--regular pals--and one day he told her he loved her. He thought he did. He didn"t _really_; but he was to learn _that_ afterward. So they became engaged--this fine fellow and the ogress.
Silly, wasn"t it? Silly of the fine fellow and silly of the ogress. And for a little while--no,"--she mused--"not a _little_ while; quite a long while, they were happy; very, very happy. And all the time they were drifting closer and closer to the edge of a precipice over which they were sure to take a tumble one day. But before that day came the fine fellow woke up, for, you see, he"d only been dreaming all the time. And the ogress wasn"t an ogress at all, but just a girl--a _sensible_ girl...."
He glanced at her reprovingly.
" ... just a sensible girl," she went on, "who, when he told her it was all a dream, said it had been a happy, happy dream, but that perhaps the awakening had come just in time. Perhaps it has, Jack," there was a note of seriousness in her voice now. "Perhaps it has; who knows? We shall think so anyway; shan"t we? It will make it easier...."
"Yes, it will make it easier," he muttered, all the light gone out of his eyes, the smile from his lips.
"Jack; you _will_ tell me one thing, won"t you, dear?"
He looked up into her face wonderingly.
"What is it?" he said.
"Was there another--another besides the ogress who turned out to be the sensible girl? Tell me, Jack; it"s all I want to know. I don"t know why I should want to know even that; but I do. I guess a girl always does.
Perhaps it"s because it usually tends either to light-up things or to make her still more miserable. I don"t know which; only it"s at such times that a girl wants either light or more misery. One seems to do as well as the other. Tell me--was there, Jack?"
He met her eyes frankly, as he spoke.
"Why Flo--I--you see----" He looked away.
She settled back among the cushions.
"Flo, you wouldn"t understand," he managed to say. "You see, it"s----"
"But I know now," she exclaimed--"and somehow it makes me feel better----"
"Flo!"
She perceived the reproof in his tone and added eagerly: "Don"t think I meant to mock you, dear; I didn"t truly. I meant just what I said--and just that way...."
Presently he stood up before her and looked down into her face.
"Flo,"--he spoke earnestly, almost pa.s.sionately--"Flo, you"re a girl in a million!"
"There!" she cried gaily, "that"s better than "_sensible_.""
He smiled.
"In a million," he repeated as though to himself. "I can never, never forget you----"
"Oh, Jack!" Again the old note of playful raillery crept into her voice.
"Now you"ve gone back. Of course you can"t forget me; at least you mustn"t, really you mustn"t; it wouldn"t be fair."
He took up his hat from the little table.
"Are you going?" she asked.
"I"d better," he said, simply.
"And shan"t I see you again?..."
Before he could reply she cried: "But I can see you graduate! I can see you get the Athens scholarship; and I shall too. And oh, Jack, when I read some day about you I shall be so glad--so glad I"ll cry!" As she spoke he saw the thin mist that he remembered seeing once before, gather over her eyes again. He touched her lightly on the cheeks with the tips of his fingers, and, stooping kissed her forehead.
"Good-bye," he said.
She took his hand and pressed it.
"Good-bye--and the best luck in the world!" she cried.
She heard the door close behind him. For a long time she did not move from among the cushions. Finally she rose. From the top shelf of the teak wood bookcase she took down a j.a.panese rose jar, and from it drew out a little card portrait of a young sweet-faced girl. She stood at the window and lifting her eyes from the portrait gazed off down the street.... The pink faded from her cheeks.... The photograph slipped from her fingers.... She sank upon her knees and hid her face among the cushions.... By and by she rose and went out into the hallway and up the stairs....
Her mother, entering below, called to her.
"I"m up here dressing, dear," she answered. "I had a note from Ed Trombley--you remember him, mother--a "90 man. His cla.s.s is having a reunion and he"s back for it. He has asked me to drive to the Lake with him--you don"t care do you?"
"No child...."