"I told her I couldn"t go there--long before I knew why."
"You could have gone--oh, there are so many other places you could go!
And this is the only place I _could_ go."
"It"s the only place I could go, too. Honest, it was. I"d have been miserable anywhere else, and--well, you aren"t making it very comfortable for me here."
It seemed natural to have him blame her for his discomfort when it was all his own fault. It seemed so natural, in the midst of the confusion of all the rest of the tangle, that it was restful.
"I"m sorry," she said.
"That"s something," he nodded.
"I--I guess the only thing for me to do is to go away myself."
"Where?"
"Back to New York. Oh, I wish I hadn"t taken a vacation!"
"We"ll go back if you say so; but it seems foolish after traveling all this distance."
"I meant to go back alone," she hastened to correct him.
"And leave me with Mrs. Halliday?"
"Please don"t mix things all up!"
"It"s you who are mixing things all up," he said earnestly. "That isn"t like you, little girl. It"s more like you to straighten things out. There"s a straight road ahead of us now, and if you"ll only take it we"ll never leave it again. All we"ve got to do is to hunt up a parson and get married, and then we"ll go anywhere you say, or not go anywhere at all. It"s as simple as that. Then, when our vacation is up, I"ll go back to Carter, Rand & Seagraves, and I"ll tell Farnsworth he"ll have to get a new stenographer. Maybe he"ll discharge me for that, but if he doesn"t I"ll tell him I want to get out and sell. And then there"s nothing more to it. With you to help--"
He tried to find her hands, but she had them pressed over her eyes.
"With you back home to help," he repeated--"there"s not anything in the world we won"t get."
And the dream woman in Sally answered to the woman on the steps:--
"There"s not anything more in the world we"ll want when we"re home."
But Don did not hear that. All he heard was a sigh. To the dream woman what he said sounded like music; but the woman on the steps answered cynically:--
"All he is saying to you now he said to that other. There, where the music was playing and the j.a.panese lanterns were bobbing, he said it to her. That was a fairy world, as this is a fairy night; but back in New York it will all be different. There are no fairies in New York.
Every time you have thought there were, you have been disappointed."
She rose swiftly to her feet.
"Oh, we mustn"t talk about it!" she exclaimed.
He too rose, and he placed both his hands upon her shoulders.
"I don"t understand," he said quickly. "What is it you don"t believe?"
"I don"t believe in fairies," she answered bitterly.
"Don"t you believe that I love you?"
"To-night--perhaps," she answered.
Her eyes were not meeting his.
"You don"t believe my love will last?"
"I--I don"t know."
"Because of Frances?"
"Everything is so different in New York," she answered.
"Because of Frances?"
She was not sure enough herself to answer that. She did not wish to be unfair. He removed his hands from her shoulders and stood back a little.
"I thought you"d understand about her. I thought you were the one woman in the world who"d understand."
She looked up quickly.
"Perhaps it"s easier for men to understand those things than women,"
she said.
"There"s so little to understand."
As he spoke, truly it seemed so. But it was always that way when she was with him. Always, if she was not very careful, he made her see exactly as he saw. It was so at Jacques"; it was so at Coney. But her whole life was at stake now. If she made a mistake, one way or the other, she must live it out--in New York. She must be by herself when she reached her decision.
"In the morning," she gasped.
"All right," he answered.
He took her hand--catching her unawares.
"See," he said. "Up there is the star I gave you. It will always be there--always be yours. And, if you can, I want you to think of me as like that star."
Upstairs in her room that night, Miss Winthrop sat by her window and tried to place herself back in New York--back in the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. It was there, after all, and not up among the stars, that she had gained her experience of men.
From behind her typewriter she had watched them come and go, or if they stayed had watched them in the making. It was from behind her typewriter she had met Don. She remembered every detail of that first day: how he stood at the ticker like a boy with a new toy, waiting for Farnsworth; how he came from Farnsworth"s office and took a seat near her, and for the next half-hour watched her fingers until she became nervous. At first she thought he was going to be "fresh." Her mind was made up to squelch him at the first opportunity. Yet, when it had come lunch-time and he sat on, not knowing what to do, she had taken pity on him. She knew he would sit on there until night unless some one showed an interest in him. She was glad now that she had, because he had been hungry. Had it not been for her, he would not have had anything to eat all day--possibly not all that week. She would never cease being glad that she had discovered this fact in time.
But she had intended that her interest should cease, once she had made sure that he was fed and in receipt of his first week"s salary. That much she would do for any man, good, bad, or indifferent. That was all she had intended. She could say that honestly. When he had appeared at her lunch-place the second and third time, she had resented it. But she had also welcomed his coming. And, when she had bidden him not to come, she had missed him.
Right here she marked a distinction between him and the others. She missed him outside the office--not only at noon, but at night. When she had opened that absurd box of flowers, she brought him into her room with her. She saw now that at the precise moment she opened that box she had lost her point of view. If she had wished to maintain it, she should have promptly done the box up again and sent it back to him.
After this their relation had changed. There could be no doubt about that. However, except for the initial fault of not returning the roses, she could not see where it was distinctly her fault. She had gone on day after day, unaware that any significant change was taking place. There had been the dinner at Jacques", and then--
With her chin in her hands, she sat by the open window and lived over again those days. Her eyes grew afire and her cheeks grew rosy and a great happiness thrilled her. So--until they reached that night at Coney and Frances smiled through the dark at her.