"The queer part is," observed Banks, with that stubborn vein of philosophy which accorded so oddly with his frivolous features, "that the thing you get doesn't ever seem to be the same as the thing you wanted. This Milly is kind to me and the other wasn't, but, somehow, that hasn't made me stop regretting the other one that I didn't marry—the Milly that banged and snapped at me about my clothes and things all day long. I don't know what it means, Smith, I've studied about it, but I can't understand."
"The meaning of it is, Banks, that you wanted not the woman, but the dream."
"Well, I didn't get it," rejoined Banks, gloomily.
"Yet Milly's a good wife and you're happy, aren't you?"
"I should be," replied Banks, "if I could forget how darn fascinating that other Milly was. Oh, yes, she's a good wife and a doting mother, and I'm happy enough, but it's a soft, squashy kind of happiness, not like the way I used to feel when I'd walk home with you after the preaching in the old field."
While he spoke they had reached Baxter's warehouse, and as Ordway was recognized, there was a quiver of excitement in the little crowd about the doorway. A moment later it had surrounded him with a shout of welcome. A dozen friendly hands were outstretched, a dozen breathless lips were calling his name. As the noise passed through the neighbouring windows, the throng was increased by a number of small storekeepers and a few straggling operatives from the cotton mills, until at last he stopped, half laughing, half crying, in their midst. Ten minutes afterward, when Baxter wedged his big person through the archway, he saw Ordway standing bareheaded in the street, his face suffused with a glow which seemed to give back to him a fleeting beam of the youth that he had lost.
"Well, I reckon it's my turn now. You can just step inside the office, Smith," remarked Baxter, while he grasped Ordway's arm and pulled him back into the warehouse. As they entered the little room, Daniel saw again the battered chair, the pile of Smith's Almanacs, and the paper weight, representing a gambolling kitten, upon the desk.
"I'm glad to see you—we're all glad to see you," said Baxter, shaking his hand for the third time with a grasp which made Ordway feel that he was in the clutch of a down cushion. "It isn't the way of Tappahannock to forget a friend, and she ain't forgotten you."
"It's like her," returned Ordway, and he added with a sigh, "I only wish I were coming back for good, Baxter."
"There now!" exclaimed Baxter, chuckling, "you don't, do you? Well, all I can say, my boy, is that you've got a powerful soft spot that you left here, and your old job in the warehouse is still waiting for you when you care to take it. I tell you what, Smith, you've surely spoiled me for any other bookkeeper, and I ain't so certain, when it comes to that, that you haven't spoiled me for myself."