To her surprise, she felt herself color up and was pleasantly conscious of her finger tips.
"You darling!" She smiled up at him.
They were seated presently in the unaired plush-and-cherry,
Nottingham-and-Axminster parlor of a small-town hotel.
"Hester," he said, "you're like a vision come to earth."
"I'm a bad durl," she said, challenging his eyes for what he knew.
"You're a little saint walked down and leaving an empty pedestal in my dreams."
She placed her forefinger over his mouth.
"Sh-h!" she said. "I'm not a saint, Gerald; you know that."
"Yes," he said, with a great deal of boyishness in his defiance, "I do know it, Hester, but it is those who have been through the fire who can sometimes come out—new. It was your early environment."
"My aunt died on the town, Gerald, I heard. I could have saved her all that if I had only known. She was cheap, aunt was. Poor soul! She never looked ahead."