"He has had, Mrs. Schum."
"I don't know. I don't know. You know best, I guess, what is in your heart."
"I do. It's this. Why can't you take—us?"
"Who?"
"I want her with me. She is getting big enough for the kind of training I have all mapped out for her. And now you—it's nothing short of destiny led me to you. I could put her in day school. Can take her myself in the mornings, say, and you, dear Mrs. Schum, are to call for her? I can pay, I can help you and you can help me. Later we may take a larger place with extra room. Mrs. Schum, don't you see, we've been thrown together!"
"Why, Lilly—I believe—I do."
It was after ten o'clock when, over a belated little meal, they ceased their planning. Eleven, when Harry finally walked with her across the viaduct to the street car. Stars were out. Thick white ones. She skipped a little, ran a little, and stood a moment at the parapet, looking down at the lights which followed the narrow course of the river. She felt suddenly wild for bauble. Her flesh, which never particularly craved the lay of fine fabric, felt cheated. She wanted to wind her body to its utmost flexuosity, bare her throat to the wind, and fling out a gesture the width of Vegas to Capella.
At the corner she took Harry's face between her hands, kissing him soundly on the lips.
"Good night, Harry, and God bless you for letting me find you."
Long after that kiss, ever so lightly bestowed, lay burning against his lips and she had boarded the street car, he stood looking after, with his very light-blue eyes.