“Where's Alice?” said Ann, innocently—for such was the name Arthur had always given the lady of the Telephone Company.
“She couldn't come,” he said. “But I want to show you her picture.”
They sat down on the bench, and he took out of his pocket a copy of the noon edition of the Planet. He turned to the feature page, and displayed the little cut of Cynthia at the head of the Lovelorn column.
“There,” he said, stoutly (though his heart was tremulous within him), “there, you adorable little thing, there she is.”
It would be pleasant to linger over this scene, but, as I have just said, this is not our denouement, but only an incident. Ann, shot through with delicious pangs of doubt and glory and anger, asked for explanations.
“And do you mean to say there never was any Alice, the beautiful Telephone blonde?” she said. “What a fraud you are!”
“Of course not,” he said. “You dear, delightful innocent, I just had to cook up some excuse for coming up to see you. And you can't be angry with me now, Ann, because in your own answer to Sincerity's letter you said the girl ought not to be offended. You told me to take a chance! Just think what self-control I had, that first time I came up to see you, not to blurt out the truth.” And then he tore off a scrap of margin from the newspaper and measured her finger for a ring.
III
There were happy evenings that winter, when Ann, after finishing her stint at the office, would hasten up their rendezvous at Piazza's little Italian table d'hote. Here, over the minestrone soup and the spaghetti and that strong Italian coffee that seems to have a greenish light round the edges of the liquid (and an equally greenish taste), they would discuss their plans and platitudes, just as lovers always have and always will. As for Ann, the light of a mystical benevolence shone in her as she conned her daily pile of broken hearts in the morning mail. More than ever she felt that she, who had seen the true flame upon the high altar, had a duty to all perplexed and random followers of the gleam who had gone astray in their search. Aware more keenly that the troubled appeals of “Tearful” and “Little Pal,” however absurd, were the pains of genuine heartache, she became more and more tender in her comments, and her correspondence grew apace. Now that she knew that her job need not go on forever she tried honestly to run the column with all her might. How stern she was with the flirt and the vamp and the jilt; how sympathetic with the wounded on Love's great battle-field. “Great stuff, great stuff!” Mr. Sikes would cry, in his coarse way, and complimented her on the increasing “kick” of her department. Knowing that he attributed the accelerated pulse of the Lovelorn column to mere cynicism on her part, she did not dare wear her ring in the office for fear of being joked about it. She used to think sadly that because she had made sympathy with lovers a matter of trade, she herself, now she was in love, could hope for no understanding. Although she hardly admitted it, she longed for the day when she could drop the whole thing.
One evening Arthur met her at Piazza's, radiant. He was going off on a long business trip for his publishing house, and they had promised him a substantial raise when he returned. They sat down to dinner together in the highest spirits. Arthur, in particular, was in a triumphant mood: the publishing world, it seemed, lay under his feet.