"I don't say that. I say only, if you are coming at all, come while I want you."
They faced each other in silence, the pretty, pleasure-loving young woman to whom life had been only a house of toys, and the rather seedy young man who had been one of the toys. The bond that held them was a slight one; a little more strain and it would have snapped. But the toy man had grown—somehow—into a real man whom she did not want to let go, and she knew that, as he had said, he had got far away from her. She could not understand; still she had not the key. And she was afraid.
"David! What is it I feel about you? You don't think—oh, you can't think—I don't love you?"
"I suppose you think you do. But it's not much of a love." A clock struck. He had forgotten his train. "Let me know if you want to come. I've got to go now."
He caught up the boy and held him close, then kissed her hastily. And before she quite realized it, he was gone.
Aunt Clara found her standing where he had left her, staring blankly at the door, unmindful of the little David tugging at her dress.
"Aunt Clara! What is it? What has happened? David has been talking about—about my never going back—"
Aunt Clara made a good guess as to what had been said. And she had been doing some more thinking of her own.
"Between us we've nearly lost you a husband. That's what has happened. And you're going to pack up and pack off to win him back, for his sake if not your own. That's what is going to happen."
"Win him back!" Shirley's world was fast sinking from under her feet. "Is—is that what Mrs. Jim has been hinting in her letters? Do you mean—you think David has stopped—loving me?"