“What are you doing ’way down here at such a time of night?”
She told him, a bit curtly, of her visit to Elsa. Ordinarily she would have taken a car uptown from the ferry terminus, but today it had occurred to her that exercise might tend a little to relieve her sense of depressing futility. So far as he was concerned, it had been a most happy decision.
They walked on together, talking of immediate things, or not talking at all; and he kept sliding his admiring eyes round for brief surveys of the fair face he could never seem to keep vividly in his mind. It rather exasperated Stella to be looked at this way. She might, she thought, almost as well be an article in any one of the shop windows they were passing. At length she demanded:
“Is something the matter with my hat?”
“No, indeed! I like it very much, Stella.”
She sighed sharply.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You seem rather mad. Anything up?”
She shook her head, and there followed a space of silence, during which she was conscious, as never hitherto, of her companion’s imperfections. It couldn’t be denied—the engagement was dragging. There wasn’t even a ring. They had decided for the present to call themselves engaged and save the money a ring would cost. Today, however, she eyed her vacant finger scornfully, and remembered with a turbulent pang how Elsa had whispered her own forthcoming engagement; what a romantic, exciting engagement it promised to be; such a propitious beginning!