“Not without you!” he cried. “I don’t want any future without you! Oh, Edith, I don’t know how to tell you—”
The head of the auditing department, in which Miss Patterson worked, often praised her for the quickness with which she grasped new ideas. This praise seemed justified, for she understood Hardy without further explanation.
Nevertheless, they both had an enormous amount of explaining to do. All the way uptown they were engaged in explaining to each other, with the greatest earnestness, just how they felt, why they felt so, and when they had begun to feel so. When they reached the depressing West Side street where Edith lived, they hadn’t half finished.[Pg 151]
The taxi stopped, and the driver turned around, so that they couldn’t go on explaining, or even say good-by; but Hardy went into the dingy little vestibule with his Edith.
“Darling girl!” he said. “Shan’t I come upstairs with you and see your aunt?”
She turned away.
“I’d rather you didn’t, Joe,” she said. “Not just now, please!”
He was willing to do anything in the world she wanted, except to leave her; but that was almost impossible. She seemed to him so forlorn, so little and so young. The brightness had left her face now. She was downcast and pale.
“Edith!” he said. “Aren’t you happy at home?”
“No, Joe, I’m not,” she answered. “I’m wretched!”