"I love you in cool stuff, Hester. You're so cool yourself, I always think of you in the little white waist and blue skirt. You remember, dear—Finleys' annual?"
"I—I'm going to dress like that for you always, Gerald."
"I won't let you be going back to work for long, sweetheart. I've some plans up my sleeve, I have."
"Yes! Yes!"
But when the end did come, it was with as much of a shock as if she had not been for days expecting it. The doctor had just left, puncturing his arm and squirting into his poor tired system a panacea for the pain. But he would not react to it, fighting down the drowsiness.
"Hester," he said, suddenly, and a little weakly, "lean down, sweetheart, and kiss me—long—long—"
She did, and it was with the pressure of her lips to his that he died.
* * * * *
It was about a week after the funeral that Wheeler came back. She was on the chaise-longue that had been dragged out into the parlor, in the webbiest of white negligées, a little large-eyed, a little subdued, but sweetening the smile she turned toward him by a trick she had of lifting the brows.
"Hel-lo, Wheeler!" she said, raising her cheek to be kissed.