“Stella, dear....” His voice was husky once more. “I love you.”
And then everything seemed altered, and she said, because she simply couldn’t help it: “Jerome—I thought it was—I thought you loved Elsa....”
He smiled, reminiscent and a little grave. “If things had turned out differently with you, there might have come a time.... You see we met just when I felt—well, when I felt, or thought I did, about everything a good deal the way she did. I don’t know....” But after a tiny silence he ended, very simply: “As it is, I only want you, Stella.”
And then—oh, well, it was a wonderful night. Love seemed to rush back and overwhelm them. It was far more thrilling than anything in the old days, yet it was all very quiet and simple.
Bracing himself just a little, and in secret glad of the dark, Jerome told her the rest about Lili, while she turned wide eyes upon him and listened. He kept nothing back, because—well, because it was such a wonderful night; and besides, he had a feeling that the foundations of their whole future happiness were, in a sense, being laid now, and there must be no false masonry. At first it seemed so strange to her that she couldn’t speak.
He wondered, a little darkly, what was passing in her mind. There were misgivings; but at length she gave his hand a pressure, and she said:
“I see, Jerome. I’m glad you told me.”
Naturally, after that, he breathed more easily. And then he went on talking about all the things that had gone to make up the fabric of his life since it was sundered from hers. He poured out to her the love that had been in his heart for the little son they had had to leave at sea, and felt her sympathy, warm and intimate. A glow seemed to envelop them both.
Here they were, on the steps, holding hands—just as in the old days, only of course now it was all more wonderful. Strange, they thought—so strange: somehow as though the tiny seed of return had been present even in that dark and groping lovers’ quarrel up Market street....
She snuggled against him softly. Thoughts of the new life just setting in flooded her heart with solemn happiness. She watched the dim trees stirring in the night wind. Stella was quite as far from Irmengarde as before. Alas, she would never be like Irmengarde, after all. But she didn’t care. And when it came to life and the serious facts of living—good heavens! she had had experiences that would make Irmengarde faint right away and never come to again.