"Why, Mr. March! When did—" the questioner's eyes dropped sedately to the ground—"when did you decide to go? Since—since—yesterday?"
"Yes, it was!" The answer came as though it were a whole heart-load.
The maiden's color rose, but she lifted her quiet, characteristic gaze to his and said, "You're glad you're going, are you not?"
"O—I—why, yes! If I'm not I know I ought to be! To see Europe and all that is great, of course. It's beyond my dreams. And yet I know it really isn't as much what I'm going to as what I'm going from that I ought to—to be g-glad of! I hope I'll come back with a little more sense. I'm going to try. I promise you, Miss Barb. It's only right I should promise—you!"
"Why, Mr. Mar—" Her voice was low, but her color increased.
"Miss Barb—O Miss Barb, I didn't come just to say good-by. I hope I know what I owe you better than that. I—Miss Barb, I came to acknowledge that I said too much yesterday!—and to—ask your pardon."
Barbara was crimson. "Mr. March!" she said, half choking, "as long as I was simple enough to let it pass unrebuked you might at least have spared me your apologies! No, I can't stay! No, not one instant! Those girls are coming to speak to me—that man"—it was the drummer—"wants to speak to you. Good-by."
Their intruders were upon them. John could only give a heart-broken look as she faltered an instant in the open door. For reply she called back, in poor mockery of a sprightly tone: "I hope you'll have ever so pleasant a voyage!" and shut the door.
So it goes with all of us through all the ungraceful, inartistic realisms of our lives; the high poetry is ever there, the kingdom of romance is at hand; the only trouble is to find the rhymes—O! if we could only find the rhymes!