"You sure are some nervy."
"'Cheer up!' I always say to myself when a firm closes the front door on me: 'Cheer up; there's always the back door and the fire-escape left.' That's how I made my rep in shirtwaists—on nerve." He inclined to her slightly across the car-seat. "You wouldn't close the front door on me, would you, Miss Miriam?"
"Look, we get off here!"
"Would you?"
"N-no, silly."
Within the park new grass was soft as plush under their feet, and once away from the winding asphalt of the main driveway the bosky heart of a dell closed them in, and the green was suddenly dappled with shadow. Here and there in the cool, damp spots violets lifted their heads and pale wood-anemones, spring's firstlings. They sat on a rock spread first with newspaper. Over their heads birds twitted.
"Somehow, here so far away and all I—I just can't get it in my head that I'm really going."
"I can't, neither."
"Naples—just think!"
"Ain't it funny, Miss Miriam, but with some girls when you meet them it's just like you had known them for always, and then again with others somehow a fellow never gets anywheres."