Then, from anger he became all tenderness. What did a little postponement matter? It would make their meeting all the finer. He wouldn’t ask her a single accusing question..That was the kind of thing Hal would have done, spoiling available happiness by a remembered grievance. Love, if it was worth anything, was a rivalry between two people to be generous. The man had to set the example; the girl didn’t dare.
As he passed out of the hotel, his eye caught a florist’s tucked away behind the doorway. He ordered some lilies of the valley to be sent to her. This time he inclosed his card. He smiled. If he took to sending her presents at the rate he had in London, she’d have no excuse for not knowing that he had landed.
“She feedeth among the lilies.” Where had he heard that? As he sauntered up Fifth Avenue in the ripe September sunlight, the scene drew from out the shadows of his memory: a little boy standing naked in a stable-studio, while a piratical-looking wild-haired father worked upon a canvas and chanted, “‘She feedeth among the lilies. She looketh forth in the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. If a man give all his substance for love he cannot...’” He remembered how his father had wagged his head at him: “No, he cannot, Teddy. Yet many waters cannot quench love.”
“She feedeth among the lilies!” He wished he had sent her a different kind of flower.
The magic of the streets took his interest—the elation of being in a new country. He was conscious of a height, a daring, a vigor which were novel in his experience. Mountains of concrete and steel met his gaze. What kind of a people was this who raised soaring palaces, bigger than cathedrals, and used them as offices? To get to the top must be a day’s journey. The people who inhabited the highest stories must live among the clouds and come down for week-ends. He watched the eagerness of the keen alert faces which hurried past him on the pavements—the quick tripping step of the girls, and the thin racing look of everybody. The types of the faces were cosmopolitan, but their expression was one: they all had the high-wrought look of athletes who were rushing to a future which would not wait for them. He felt himself caught up, daunted, stung into vitality, and whirled forward by a wave of monstrous endeavor.
That afternoon he visited the editor who was the excuse for his journey. All the while, as he sat talking to him, he kept thinking: “The flowers will have arrived by now. She’ll know that I have come.”
He talked prices which should have astounded him; but the only thought he had was how much this influx of money and reputation would enable him to do for her. When he had arranged the nature of his contributions, he was on edge for his interview to end. The moment it was over, he dashed to the elevator, found the nearest telephone and rang up his hotel.
“This is Mr. Gurney. Has a message been left for me?”
“None.”
Strange. There must be some reason. She would tell him when they met. Should he call her up? Or go to her house and camp till she came back? He shook his head. His pride warned him that that wouldn’t be policy. The next sign must come from her. And then he wondered, was it right to have either pride or policy when you were in love? It was pride and policy that had made him waste his chances on that night drive from Glastonbury.