FOR ONE MORE CHANCE TO REFUSE HIM SHE WOULD HAVE BARTERED MUCH 66 Exactly," said Angela. careless humans, and the footsteps of They consumed a very fair entrée in soft-moving Chinese waiters went concomparative quiet. "Tell me," said Angela at last, "what sank lower. will you do-back there?" Edwin laid down his fork and looked suddenly off across the room into the corner of Forty-second and Broadway. Then he said what he would do. It began with going down to the bank to see his father, and ended with a week in New York. He remembered to add that he should miss "Oh, don't!" said Angela, a trifle savagely. "Why should you?" Fish, roast, and salad came and departed while Angela and Edwin played with generalities. All about them the clink of silver and glass, the chatter of stantly on, and momently Angela's heart For one more chance to much, but the bargain was not offered refuse Edwin she would have bartered away brought nearer the ultimate goodher, and every hour that ticked itself by. She forced herself to swallow coffee and watched with a brooding gaze the waiter's deft acceptance of his tip. "Now take me home," she said, and Edwin took her home. In all that hour and a half of tête-àtête across the violets he had not once said, looked, or leaned to anything beyond a casual and friendly regret at leaving her. So Angela led the way to the machine, and later up the steps of her own home, into the familiar quiet of her drawingroom. She drew the pins from her hat, and laid the heavy, black-plumed thing upon the table. Her eyes and her throat ached impartially for tears; added to which a fierce resentment of her own weakness tortured her grimly. She saw herself laying adroit openings for Edwin's advances, and saw that Edwin passed them unobservant, advancing not at all. Subtle conversational ruses she employed to lead him into personalities, but whereas of old all roads led to Rome, there was now not one that she could find. All the ghosts of her rejected suitors came trooping from the corners of the room and made mouths at her. "This," she fancied them saying, "is only what you did to us-how does it feel--and you so proud?" Angela writhed under her own scorn, even while she laughed and shrugged and spoke prettily of all sorts of things. And all the time the clock on the mantel struck off seconds and minutes and hours, and the end of the world came nearer. When the hour-hand touched ten, Edwin got to his feet deliberately. "I've still got to pack-just a suitcase." "Oh-" said Angela, and stood up as well. "Did you say good-by to mother?" "Before you came down-stairs.” "We shall all miss you," said Angela, almost too evenly. ANGELA STOOPED SWIFTLY AND CAUGHT UP THE GLITTERING THING "I've had some bully times here," said Edwin. A pause fell. He thrust one hand into his trousers pocketpossibly to keep it out of harm's way-and held out the other. "Good-by, Angela!" "Good-by," said Angela, rather low. She kept her eyes down persistently. "Good - by," said Ed"Sometime, may win. be" with long pauses. "It's no good asking you to remember me, I suppose?" "Why?" said Angela. "So many other fellows-so much to doout of sight, you know, out of mind." "It's like that with you?" said Angela. "Not on your life," said Edwin, briefly. He set his teeth and produced a smile, the wide, endearing smile of the small boy who hankers after jampots. "It's a small world," he suggested, hopelessly. "We might come together again, some day." "I doubt it," said Angela, out of a delicate gloom. For two young people of average intelligence their remarks betrayed an appalling stupidity. The clock ticked more brightly than Angela spoke, the white cat on the hearth purred more vigorously than Edwin answered. Suddenly he took his courage into his two hands. 66 Good-by," he choked, and was gone. Angela's responsive whisper followed him out of the door. Within the room, when he had left it, a comedy of emotions enacted itself briefly. Angela stooped swiftly to the floor and caught up the glittering thing which her foot had hidden. It showed itself a scarf-pin, a black enamel upon an oval surface of gold. With one movement she hid it in the laces above her heart, with another she crossed to the couch against the wall, with a third she flung herself prone upon the pillows, and with a fourth she sobbed. The clock ticked and the white cat purred in an emptiness of expectation. There was no step along the hall. she smiled when he put his arm around her, but when he stooped to her lips she shut her eyes, and the smile flickered out in a breathless glory. When he kissed her, Edwin came back to earth. "I've got four hundred a month, you've got twelve thousand," he stated, briefly. "You should have thought of that before," said Angela. "I did," said Edwin, honestly. "I heard a fellow say at the University Club one night that every fortune-hunter on the Pacific coast was after you-so I made up my mind to go home. Then the old man got appendicitis-" "Tell me," she said at last, "did you do it to make me give in-pretending you weren't going to ask me again, and all that?" Edwin stared. "I've got passage on the Korea tomorrow morning," he said. "I'm not so foxy as you think." "I didn't know," murmured Angela. "If I change my passage to the Manchuria-that's two weeks off-will you go home with me?" he inquired. Angela said he must be crazy; then she said she didn't see how she possibly could; then she said what would people say; then she said she would, and what "Will I have to live on your four should she be married in? hundred?" asked Angela. "Not if you're too deeply attached to your twelve thousand," said Edwin. "You can buy your clothes, but I pay the housekeeping. Do you get me?" "I do," said Angela. She let him kiss her again. "Oh, any old thing," said Edwin, “so long as you're inside of it." He kissed the lids of her gold-gray eyes. "I thought you never would-" he whispered, chokingly. "I thought you never would," said Angela. |