"Fool! Why did she have to come this evening!" And then, "O Leonard, is it possible that little young thing can love you as I do!" And, "O Leonard—O Leonard!"
Marjorie, in the garden, skirted the shrubs and stole between the flower-beds to the library window. Vividly she could see Leonard, stretched out in a chair, his cigarette in one hand, gesticulating, talking.
"He's happy; he's forgotten all about me," she thought; and swept by an absurd emotion of self-pity, she kissed her own arms in the darkness to comfort herself, till her eyes, which never left his face, saw him turn warily and desperately to the clock.
"Leonard," she whispered, pressing close to the glass.
Suddenly he saw her revealed in the pale halo of light cast by the window into the darkness. He looked at her for moments without moving. Then she saw him get up and say good night to his father, putting his hand awkwardly and self-consciously on his sleeve. Minutes passed, and she knew he had gone to say good night to his mother, and then she saw the light of his cigarette coming toward her across the lawn. She waited without moving for him to touch her. So many times she would feel him coming toward her in the moonlight, the outline of his dear form lost in the dusk, and when he put out his hand it would be only empty shadows.
"Marjorie, where are you?"
"Here, Len."
Some one came to the front door and called out,—
"Are you there, Leonard and Marjorie? Lock the door when you come in, Leonard."
From the darkness they saw his mother's form silhouetted against the light inside. She started as if to come toward them, and then suddenly shut the door and left them alone together in the white night.