"I'm glad we're here, Fran, for you have your friendly look."
"That's because I really do like you. Let's talk about yourself—how you expect to be what you'll be—you're nothing yet, you know, Abbott; but how did you come to determine to be something?"
Into Abbott's smile stole something tender and sacred. "It was all my mother," he explained simply. "She died before I received my state certificate, but she thought I'd be a great man—so I am trying for it."
"And she'll never know," Fran lamented.
She slipped her hand into his. "Didn't I have a mother? Oh, these mothers! And who can make mother-wishes come true? Well! And you just studied with all your might; and you'll keep on and on, till you're… out of my reach, of course. Which would have suited your mother, too." She withdrew her hand.
"My mother would have loved you," he declared, for he did not understand, so well as Fran, about mothers' liking for strange young ladies who train lions.
"Mine would you," Fran asserted, with more reason.
Abbott, conscious of a dreadful emptiness, took Fran's hand again.
"I'll never be out of your reach, Fran."
She did not seek to draw away, but said, with dark meaning, "Remember the bridge at midnight."
"I remember how you looked, with the moonlight silvering your face— you were just beautiful that night, little Nonpareil!"