“It’s you who are mixing things all up,” he said earnestly. “That isn’t like you, little girl. It’s more like you to straighten things out. There’s a straight road ahead of us now, and if you’ll only take it we’ll never leave it again. All we’ve got to do is to hunt up a parson and get married, and then we’ll go anywhere you say, or not go anywhere at all. It’s as simple as that. Then, when our vacation is up, I’ll go back to Carter, Rand & Seagraves, and I’ll tell Farnsworth he’ll have to get a new stenographer. Maybe he’ll discharge me for that, but if he doesn’t I’ll tell him I want to get out and sell. And then there’s nothing more to it. With you to help––”
He tried to find her hands, but she had them pressed over her eyes.
“With you back home to help,” he repeated––“there’s not anything in the world we won’t get.”
And the dream woman in Sally answered to the woman on the steps:––
“There’s not anything more in the world we’ll want when we’re home.”
But Don did not hear that. All he heard was a sigh. To the dream woman what he said sounded like music; but the woman on the steps answered cynically:––
“All he is saying to you now he said to that other. There, where the music was playing and the Japanese lanterns were bobbing, he said it to her. That was a fairy world, as this is a fairy night; but back in New York it will all be different. There are no fairies in New York. Every time you have thought there were, you have been disappointed.”
She rose swiftly to her feet.
“Oh, we mustn’t talk about it!” she exclaimed.