“Good night!” he answered.
II
He stood beside what was left of his fire and watched her walking away, a swift, light little figure against so vast a horizon; and he felt very unhappy.
“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” he asked himself angrily. “It’s no crime to ask a girl out to dinner, is it?”
He stamped out the last sparks and set off for his sister’s house. He was surprised, when he drew near, to hear the phonograph still playing. It seemed to him that he had been gone so long, so far!
He crossed the lawn, went up on the veranda, and looked in at the window. They were still dancing in there. He saw that pretty little blond girl in her short, sleeveless white satin frock. There came before him the face of that other girl, seen only for a brief instant in the firelight—that little dark face with shining eyes.
“I love her!” he thought, with a sort of awe. “She’s the girl I’ve always been waiting for. Emmy—little darling, wonderful Emmy—I love her!”
He could not endure to go in, to dance, to speak to any one else. He stayed out there in the dark garden, walking up and down, smoking, cherishing his dear vision.
After awhile the two girls who had been dancing, and whom his sister had invited specially on his account, came out, with two young fellows. Kirby stepped back into the shadow of the trees and waited until they had driven off, until he could no longer hear their gay voices.
He compared these girls with Emmy. She wore no paint or powder; he had not seen her dancing in a hot and brilliant room. She belonged to another world—a world of sea and open sky and firelight. She was a creature with the free, fearless innocence of the Golden Age.