“Well, what’s wanted?” queried she.
“Will you marry me, Diana?”
“Don’t be foolish, kid. You’ve mixed your cues. That line belongs in the last chapter. You’d better go to bed now. You’ve had a busy day.”
So, knowing that the morrow would bring further adventure, I lay down and fell into a dreamless sleep, but when I awoke in the morning, Diana was nowhere to be seen.
ONE OF HERS
Long After
Willa Cather
CHAPTER I
Claude Wheeler opened his eyes, just as he had done often before. The dreary monotony of his day thus monotonously began. He turned on one elbow and gazed at his shirt hanging on the chair beside his bed. It was the same shirt which he had worn yesterday, would wear to-morrow. But it was not the monotony of the shirt that deluged him with self-pity. It was the fact that he had only one collar-button. Other people, the Erlich boys in Lincoln, his own father, had two. Claude had but one, which fastened his shirt in front. When he wore a collar he had to fasten it at the back with an old piece of string, which Mahailey had given him.
Claude would have liked to buy another collar-button. He had more than enough money; and his father was a rich farmer. He tried to excuse his cowardice to himself, but in his heart he knew that it was too difficult for him to do this simple thing.