"Ah," said Dorland, "that's what you get by book-larnin'."
"Yes," I admitted; "it helps some."
"Mount Vernon 1-0-0-0"
They were getting to the sad point where each was growing tired of the other. The crescendo of love's young dream had passed. Each was sub-consciously realizing that while the springtime of their romance had been full of glorious days the summer was destined to be damp and showery. Daniel was beginning to find faults in Jennie that he had not believed could exist in her, and Jennie in turn was more and more provoked with Daniel, more and more exacting in what she required of him, and more and more disposed to accuse him of not keeping up with the devoted pace he had set when he first began to pay her definite attentions the winter before. Daniel sometimes would dance with other girls, a thing he had not dreamt of doing in the heyday of their affair, and Jennie did not hesitate to accept invitations from men who were as deferential and admiring as Daniel had been in the beginning. Their friends, those at least who were discerning, realized that the probability of a marriage between them was becoming more and more remote.
Jennie and her parents were spending the summer at Mount Holly Inn, and, among other instances of his growing restiveness, Daniel was inclined to grumble at having to bolt his dinner, dress hurriedly in his sun-baked room on Park avenue, and make the suburban car journey nightly in order to reach her side. Sometimes he balked and called her up by 'phone instead, and though she professed her disappointment and scolded him, he was almost sure to learn the next day she had enjoyed her evening at dancing or bowling. Then again there were occasions when he had made up his mind to be on hand, according to promise, and had started to get ready when called off by a message from Jennie, telling him that she had been invited to enjoy a moonlight auto spin with Mr. and Mrs. Chester, fellow-guests with whom she had grown most friendly.
And so it came to an evening in September when Daniel and Jennie had not seen each other for as many as three days, the longest period of absence in the history of their attachment. Work was slack with the trust company that day, and Daniel had seized the opportunity to leave the Equitable Building early and see the Baltimores inflict a defeat on the Buffalo nine at Union Park, in the homestretch of the pennant race. As he was cutting across lots after the game, hurrying to catch a St. Paul-street car ahead of the crowd, he ran into Tom Oliver, and from the moment of the encounter realized that it was all off for a visit to Mount Holly that night. For Tom was a jolly soul and a generous one, and they had been strong chums before Tom had struck out into the wilds of West Virginia for a lumber company. So that when Master Thomas, as expected, proposed that they make an evening of it, for old times' sake, with dinner at the Belvedere and a jaunt later to River View, Electric Park or the Suburban, Daniel's demur that he already had an engagement was a very weak one indeed. It was, in fact, such a wobbly little demur that one more word from Tom and he had promised to call up and break the date. He did not mention that it was with Jennie, for Jennie had come into Daniel's life after Tom had vanished into the timber forest.
Half an hour later found him in the telephone-room of the Belvedere. The trimly dressed young woman who took his money gave him no second glance as she automatically murmured "Walbrook 1-8-6, please," into the mouthpiece hanging before her, and an instant later, just as automatically, waved him into one of the booths against the wall.
He had not fully made up his mind what excuse he would give Jennie for staying away, and the wait after a bellboy at Mount Holly Inn had been sent to find Miss Jennie gave him time to think this over. Two nights before he had 'phoned her that he was working late at the office. That would not do again. Still, he felt that he could not well tell the truth and say an intimate friend from West Virginia had turned up. Ultimately, he reached the conclusion that it was best to say he was not feeling well, even though he ran the risk that some friend of hers, or some guest at Mount Holly who knew him, might have seen him at the ball game that afternoon and might mention it.
There came a feminine voice across the wire. Daniel perceived at once that it was not Jennie, but her mother.