Either Frances had grown more beautiful in the last three months, or Don had forgotten how really beautiful she was when she left; for, when she stepped down the gangplank toward him, he was quite sure that never in his life had he seen any one so beautiful as she was then. Her cheeks were tanned, and there was a foreign touch in her costume that made her look more like a lady of Seville than of New York. As she bent toward him for a modest kiss, he felt for a second as if he were in the center of some wild plot of fiction. This was not she to whom he was engaged,––she whom he purposed to marry within the week,––but rather some fanciful figure of romance.

He stepped into her car,––he did not know even if he was asked,––and for a half-hour listened to her spirited narration of incidents of the voyage. It was mostly of people, of this man and that, this woman and that, with the 223 details of the weather and deck sports. Under ordinary circumstances he might have enjoyed the talk; but, with all he had to tell her, it sounded trivial.

They reached the house. Even then, there was much talk of trunks and other things of no importance to him whatever. Stuyvesant hung around in frank and open admiration of his daughter; and Mrs. Stuyvesant beamed and listened and stayed. Don had a feeling that, in spite of his position in the family, they looked upon him at this moment as an intruder.

It was another half-hour before he found himself alone with her. She came to his side at once––almost as if she too had been awaiting this opportunity.

“Dear old Don,” she said. “It’s good to see you again. But you look tired.”

“And you look beautiful!” he exclaimed.

Now that he was alone with her, he felt again as he had at the steamer––that this woman was not she to whom he was engaged, but some wonderful creature of his imagination. The plans he had made for her became commonplace. 224 One could not talk over with her the matter-of-fact details of marrying and of housekeeping and of salaries. And those things that yesterday had filled him with inspiration, that had appeared to him the most wonderful things in life, that had been associated with the stars, seemed tawdry. She had been to London to see the Queen, and the flavor of that adventure was still about her.

“Don, dear, what’s the matter?”

He was so long silent that she was worried. He passed his hand over his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “There were a lot of things I wanted to say to you, and now I can’t think of them.”

“Nice things?”

“Perhaps it’s the house,” he replied vaguely. “I wish we could get out of here for a little while. After lunch I want you to come to walk with me. Will you?”

“Where, Don?”

He smiled.

“In the park.”

“What an odd fancy!” she answered.

“Here I get you all mixed up with your 225 father and mother and the Queen,” he ran on. “I want to talk to you alone.”

He sounded more natural to her when he talked like that.

“All right, Don, though there are a hundred things I ought to do this afternoon. And I must decide about going to the mountains with Dolly. What were those other plans you cabled me about?”

“Those are what I want to talk over with you,” he answered.

“What are they? I’m dying to know.”

“I’ll tell you in the park. Now I’ll go, so that you’ll have time to do some of the hundred things you want to do.”

He turned.

“Don’t you want to––to––”

She held out her arms to him. He kissed her lips. Then she seemed to come back to him as she had been before she sailed. He could have said all he wished to say then. But her mother was calling her.

“I’ll be here at two. And, this once––you must cancel every other engagement.”

“Yes, Don.”

She came to the door with him, and stood there until he turned the corner. He did not know where to go, but unconsciously his steps took him downtown. He stopped at a florist’s and ordered a dozen roses to be sent back to the house. He stopped to order a box of her favorite bonbons. Then he kept on downtown toward the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves. But this was the first day of his vacation, and so he had no object in going there. He must find a place to lunch. He came to a dairy lunch, and then he knew exactly what it was he needed. He needed Sally Winthrop to talk over his complication with him.

As he made his way to the counter for his sandwich and coffee, he frowned. He had told her that he would surely need her. Now she was gone. He suddenly recalled that she had not even left her address.

Only two days before he had been discussing with her the final details of the house awaiting Frances, and she had made him feel that everything was perfect.

“She will love it,” she had assured him.

It was as if he heard her voice again repeating 227 that sentence. Once again he reacted to her enthusiasm and saw through her eyes. She had made him feel that money––the kind of money Stuyvesant stood for––was nonsense. A salary of twelve hundred a year was enough for the necessities, and yet small enough to give his wife an opportunity to help.

“When the big success comes,” she had said to him, “then Frances can feel that it is partly her success too. A woman doesn’t become a wife by just marrying a man, does she? It’s only when she has a chance to help that she can feel herself really a wife.”

As she said it he felt that to be true, although to him it was a brand-new point of view.

And Sally Winthrop had given him, in her own life, a new point of view on woman. He understood that she had never married because she had never happened to fall in love. She had always been too busy. But if ever she did fall in love, what a partner she would make! Partner––that was the word.

“It’s in you to get everything in the world you want,” she had said last night, when she was leaving him.

So it was. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and glanced at his watch. It was shortly after one. He must stay down here another half-hour––stay around these streets where he had walked with her and where she had made him see straight––until he had just time to meet Frances.

He went out and walked past the office of Carter, Rand & Seagraves, and then walked to the Elevated station where she took the train at night for home. The sight of the steps up which they had climbed together made him almost homesick. He wished to Heaven that she had postponed her vacation another day. If only he could see her a few minutes right now, he would be absolutely sure of himself.

It was after two when he reached the house, but Frances was not ready. She was never quite ready.

“I’ll wait outside,” he told the maid.

The maid raised her brows a trifle, but answered civilly:––

“Very well, sir.”

As he walked back and forth the Stuyvesant machine also drew up before the door and 229 waited. He viewed it with suspicion. He could not say what he had to say in that. She must be afoot, as Sally Winthrop always was.

He was making his turn at the end of the street when she came down the steps and before he could reach her stepped into the machine.

“I have several little things to do after we’ve had our walk,” she explained to Don, as he came up.

She made room for him by her side. Because he did not wish to argue before the chauffeur, he took his allotted place; but he himself gave the order to the driver:––

“Central Park.”

Then he turned to her.

“When we get there we must get out and walk.”

“Very well, Don,” she submitted; “but I think we’d be much more comfortable right here.”

She regarded him anxiously.

“Is anything worrying you, Don?”

“Only you,” he answered.

“I?” she exclaimed. “If it’s because of Jimmy Schuyler, you needn’t worry any more. 230 He was very nice at first, but later––well, he was too nice. You see, he forgot I was engaged.”

“The little cad!” exclaimed Don.

“You mustn’t blame him too much. He just forgot. And now he is very attentive to Dolly.”

“She allows it?”

“I think she rather likes him. She has invited him up to camp. And, Don, dear, she wants you to come too. It would be very nice if we could all go. Can’t you manage it?”

“It doesn’t appeal to me just now,” he answered.

The machine had swung into the park. He ordered the chauffeur to stop.

“Come,” he said to Frances.

He found the path from the drive where the children played, and he found the bench where he had sat with Sally Winthrop. Then all she had told him came back to him, as it had in the dairy lunch.

“It’s about the other plans I want to tell you out here,” he began eagerly.

“Yes, Don.”

“I’ve done a lot of work while you were away,” he said proudly.

“It seems a pity it was necessary,” she answered.

“It’s been the best thing that ever happened to me,” he corrected her. “It has made me see straight about a lot of things. And it’s helped me to make good in the office.”

She looked puzzled.

“You mean you’ve been made a partner or something?”

“Hardly that––yet,” he smiled. “But it’s pretty sure I’ll be put to selling when I come back.”

“You’re going away?”

“I’m on my vacation,” he explained. “This is the first day of my vacation.”

“Oh, then you can come with us?”

“I’d rather you came with me.”

“With you, Don? But where?”

“Anywhere you wish, as long as we go together and alone. Only we must get back in two weeks.”

“Don, dear!”

“I mean it,” he went on earnestly. “I want to marry you to-morrow or next day. Your trunks are all packed, and you needn’t unpack 232 them. We’ll spend all the time we can spare in the mountains, and then come back––to the house. It’s all ready for you, Frances. It’s waiting for you.”

She stared about in fear lest some one might be overhearing his rambling talk.

“Don,” she gasped.

“Nora has cleaned every room,” he ran on, “and I’ve saved a hundred dollars for the trip. And Farnsworth is going to give me a raise before December. He hasn’t promised it, but I know he’ll do it, because I’m going to make good. You and I together will make good.”

She did not answer. She could not. She was left quite paralyzed. He was leaning forward expectantly.

“You’ll come with me?”

It was a full minute before she could answer. Then she said:––

“It’s so impossible, Don.”

“Impossible?”

“One doesn’t––doesn’t get married that way!”

“What does it matter how one gets married?” he answered.

“What would people say?”

“I don’t care what they’d say.”

“You mustn’t get like that, Don, dear,” she chided him. “Why, that’s being an anarchist or something, isn’t it?”

“It’s just being yourself, little girl,” he explained more gently. “The trouble with us is, we’ve thought too much about other people and––other things. It’s certain that after we’re married people aren’t going to worry much about us, so why should we let them worry us before that? No, it’s all our own affair. As for the salary part of it, we’ve been wrong about that, too. We don’t need so much as we thought we did. Why, do you know you can get a good lunch downtown for fifteen cents? It’s a fact. You can get an egg sandwich, a chocolate Éclair, and a cup of coffee for that. I know the place. And I’ve figured that, with the house all furnished us, we can live easy on twenty-five a week until I get more. You don’t need your ten thousand a year. It’s a fact, Frances.”

She did not answer, because she did not quite know what he was talking about. Yet, her 234 blood was running faster. There was a new light in his eyes––a new quality in his voice that thrilled her. She had never heard a man talk like this before.

“You’ll have to trust me to prove all those things,” he was running on. “You’ll have to trust me, because I’ve learned a lot this summer. I’ve learned a lot about you that you don’t know yourself yet. So what I want you to do is just to take my hand and follow. Can you do that?”

At that moment it seemed that she could. On the voyage home she had sat much on the deck alone and looked at the stars, and there had been many moments when she felt exactly as she felt now. Thinking of him and looking at the stars, nothing else had seemed to matter but just the two of them.

There had been a child on board who had taken a great fancy to her––a child about the age of one that was now running about the grass under the watchful eyes of a nurse. His name was Peter, and she and Peter used to play tag together. One afternoon when he was very tired he had crept into her arms, and she had carried 235 him to her steamer-chair and wrapped him in her steamer-rug and held him while he slept. Then she had felt exactly as when she looked at the stars. All the things that ordinarily counted with her did not at that moment count at all. She had kissed the little head lying on her bosom and had thought of Don––her heart pounding as it pounded now.

“Oh, Don,” she exclaimed, “it’s only people in stories who do that way!”

“It’s the way we can do––if you will.”

“There’s Dad,” she reminded him.

“He let you become engaged, didn’t he?”

“Yes; but––you don’t know him as well as I.”

“I’ll put it up to him to-day, if you’ll let me. Honest, I don’t think it’s as much his affair as ours, but I’ll give him a chance. Shall I?”

She reached for his hand and pressed it.

“I’ll give him a chance, but I can’t wait. We haven’t time to bother with a wedding––do you mind that?”

“No, Don.”

“Then, if he doesn’t object––it’s to-morrow or next day?”

“You––you take away my breath,” she answered.

“And if he does object?”

“Don’t let’s think of that––now,” she said. “Let’s walk a little––in the park. It’s wonderful out here, Don.”

Yes, it was wonderful out there––how wonderful he knew better than she. She had not had his advantages. She had not had Sally Winthrop to point out the wonders and make a man feel them. Of course, it was not the place itself––not the little paths, the trees, or even the big, bright sky that Frances meant or he meant. It was the sense of individuality one got here: the feeling of something within bigger than anything without. It was this that permitted Sally Winthrop to walk here with her head as high as if she were a princess. It was this that made him, by her side, feel almost like a prince. And now Frances was beginning to sense it. Don felt his heart quicken.

“This is all you need,” he whispered. “Just to walk out here a little.”