"Wait," she interrupted me, suddenly bethinking herself of a new point. "If he is as great a designer as you say he is, and he works for a big firm, how is it, then, that he can't find a partner with big money?"
"He could, any number of them, but he has confidence in me. He says he would much rather start with me on two thousand than with somebody else on twenty.
He thinks I should make an excellent business man, and that between the two of us we should make a great success of it. Money is nothing—so he says—money can be made, but with a fool of an outside man even more than twenty thousand dollars might go up in smoke." "That's so," Gussie assented, musingly. There was a pause
"Well, Gussie?" I mustered courage to demand
"You don't want me to give you an answer right off, do you?
Things like that are not decided in a hurry."
We went on to discuss the project and some indifferent topics. It was rapidly growing dark and cool. Looming through the thickening dusk, somewhat diagonally across the dock from us, was the figure of a young fellow with his head reclining on the shoulder of a young woman. A little further off and nearer to the water I could discern a white shirt-waist in the embrace of a dark coat. A song made itself heard. It was "After the Ball is Over," one of the sentimental songs of that day. "Tara-ra-boom-de-aye" followed, a tune usually full of joyous snap and go, but now performed in a subdued, brooding tempo, tinged with sadness. It rang in a girlish soprano, the rest of the crowd listening silently. By this time the gloom was so dense that the majority of us could not see the singer, which enhanced the mystery of her melody and the charm of her young voice. Presently other voices joined in, all in the same meditative, somewhat doleful rhythm. Gayer strains would have sounded sacrilegiously out of tune with the darkling glint of the river, with the mysterious splash of its waves against the bobbing bulkheads of the pier, with the starry enchantment of the passing ferry-boats, with the love-enraptured solemnity of the spring night.
I had not the heart even to think of business, much less to talk it. We fell silent, both of us, listening to the singing. Poor Gussie! She was not a pretty girl, and she did not interest me in the least. Yet at this moment I was drawn to her. The brooding, plaintive tones which resounded around us had a bewitching effect on me. It filled me with yearning; it filled me with love. Gussie was a woman to me now. My hand sought hers. It was an honest proffer of endearment, for my soul was praying for communion with hers
She withdrew her hand. "This should not be done in a hurry, either," she explained, pensively
"Gussie! Dear Gussie!" I said, sincerely, though not unaware of the temporary nature of my feeling
"Don't!" she implored me