“I’m sure my mother and sister will be glad to meet you.”
“Of course, they’ve heard about ‘Mr. Beardsley.’”
“Have they? ... Do you talk about me sometimes to them?”
“Why, of course! ... Naturally.... What do you expect?”
“I hope you’ve given me a good character.”
“I daresay they think you’re an old bald-headed man with a thick curly beard.”
“Oh, _no_! ... They’ll be terribly disappointed!”
“I’m going to tell them you’re a gruff old codger with a perpetual grouch.”
“Here’s your home. I had no idea we had walked so far.... Shall I see you to-morrow? I’ll be waiting at the Seventy-second Street entrance to the Park.”
She nodded, waved her hand to him, and ran up the stone steps. He waited until she had fitted her key into the lock, and the heavy glass-panelled door had closed behind her.
Saturday was their first intimate little meal by a window in a café. It had been their last morning at the office, and by noon the activities of the Soulé Publishing Company in selling the _Universal History of the World_ had ceased. Pay envelopes had been distributed shortly after eleven, and an hour later all the little Jewesses with their absurd pompadours and high heels, the Misses Rosens and Flannigans, the office clerks and office boys had packed the great elevators for the last time, laughing and squeezing together, and swarmed out of the building not to return. And Roy and Jeannette were among them.
“You will go to lunch with me?” he had written on a sheet of paper and pushed toward her as she sat at his elbow. “I’ve got a lot of things to talk to you about, and it’s our last day here together.”
She had tried to consider the matter dispassionately, but a glimpse of his bright, eager eyes fixed on her had sent the blood flooding her neck and cheeks, and before she quite knew what she had done she had nodded.
He joined her at the street entrance and together they made a happy progress toward Broadway.
A great felicity descended upon them. Their senses thrilled to the beauty of the warm day and their being thus together. Roy piloted her through the hurrying noontime throng, his hand about her arm. She tingled again at the touch of his fingers, and loved it. Then they entered the café of a hotel, and found a cozy table for two by the window where, dazzled and enthralled by their great happiness, they smiled into one another’s eyes across the white cloth, glittering with cutlery and glasses.