“That? Oh, my sister-in-law out in Chicago.”
Howard did not then understand why she became so gay, why her eyes danced with happiness, why as soon as she went into the hall she began to sing and kept it up in her own room, quieting down only to burst forth again. He did not even especially note the swift change, the, for her, extraordinary mood of high spirits. It was about this time that their relations began to change.
Howard had thought of her, or had thought that he thought of her, only as a lonely and desolate child, to be taught so far as he was capable of teaching and she of learning. He was conscious of her extreme youth and of the impassable gulf of thought and taste between them. He did not take her feelings into account at all. It never occurred to him that this part of friend and patron which he was playing was not safe for him, not just and right toward her.
One night he took her to a ball at the Terrace Garden--a respectable, amusing affair “under the auspices of the Young-German-American-Shooting-Society.” The next day a reporter for the _Sun_ whom he knew slightly said to him with a grin he did not like: “Mighty pretty little girl you’re taking about with you, Howard. Where’d you pick her up?”
Howard reddened, angry with himself for reddening, angry with the _Sun_ man for his impudence, ashamed that he had put himself and Alice in such a position. But the incident brought the matter of his relation with her sharply and clearly before his mind and conscience.
“This must stop,” he said to himself; “it must stop at once. It is unjust to her. And it is dragging me into an entanglement.”
But the mischief had been done. She loved him. And with the confidence of youth and inexperience, she was disregarding all the obstacles, was giving herself up to the dream that he would presently love her in return, with the end as in the story books. Indeed love stories became her constant companions. Where she once read them for amusement, she now read them as a Christian reads his Bible--for instruction, inspiration, faith, hope and courage.
One evening in July--it was in the week of Independence Day--Howard’s windows and door were thrown wide to get the full benefit of whatever stir there might be in the air. He was sprawled upon the lounge, the table drawn close and upon it a lamp shedding a dim light through the room but enough near by to let him read. He had dropped his book and was thinking whether a stroll in the Square in the moonlight would repay the trouble of moving. There were steps in the hall and then, peeping round the door-frame was the face of his young neighbour.