“Kurt,” she soliloquized, “you’ve been weighed and found wanting. You don’t know what love is. No man does. It is a woman’s kingdom.”
Then a radiant smile drove the reflective shadows from her eyes. There had burst forth a whistle, clear, keen, inspiring. Only one person in her world was so lark-like, so jubilant, so joyous of nature as to improvise such a trilling melody.
With an expectant smile she looked out and saw Jo crossing the moonlit lawn.
“Halloa, Jo!” she called softly.
He looked up, extended his cap at arm’s length with a gay flourish and called:
“Bless your little heart of honey! What are you doing up so late?”
“Is it late?” she asked in arch surprise. “I’m so sorry, for I was going to say I’d come down for a little walk with you.”
“’Deed, it’s never too late for that; but say, little Penny Ante, Kurt is sitting in the library window—”
“I am not coming into view of the library window. Wait a moment! Catch this.”
She picked up her sweater from the window seat and threw it down to him, stepped nimbly over the railing of the little balcony, made a quick spring, caught the branch of a nearby tree and slid down to earth.