"Lilly, I feel so easy. I never felt so easy."
"Lie quietly, dear."
"Life can be hard, Lilly. And now—war. Make it easier for yourself. Don't let him out there—go over there—anywhere—reproaching. Your parents—your child—it's his as much as yours, Lilly. If I had gone first, my boy would have reproached. There is nothing so terrible, Lilly—as eyes that reproach—eyes—Lilly—don't."
"I—won't."
She drifted off then in the placidity of a sleep from which she was not to emerge.
* * * * *
Lilly walked home that early morning following. Her direction lay in a straight line through Central Park. Spring was out in firstlings of every kind. The baby nap of new grass. Trees ready to quiver into leaf. The sun came up from behind a sky line of skyscrapers, and as she was crossing the Mall a fountain rained up a first joyous geyser, some sparrows immediately plunging for a bath.
She sat down on a bench there in the lovely quiet, quite lax, and, because of its pressure, her natty little blue sailor in her lap. The air was like cool water and she closed her tired eyes to it.
Finally children began to trot past on their way to school. She heard their shouts and watched them. A father passed with his little girl by the hand and carrying her sheaf of books. A boy in knickerbockers lunged furiously on roller skates. Another drove his ball under her bench and she smiled as she drew aside to let him drive. A private in khaki threw her a flirtatious glance. The sun found her finally.
Then Lilly followed one of her curious and absolutely irrepressible impulses, one that must have been smoldering who knows how long.