"Yes—I look for Bob and Abbott now just any minute." She added, eying the crowd—"I saw Fran on the street, long and merry ago!" Her accent was that of condemnation. Like a rock she sat, letting the fickle populace drift by to minstrel show and snake den. The severity of her double chin said they might all go thither—she would not; let them be swallowed up by that gigantic serpent whose tail, too long for bill-board illustration, must needs be left to coil in the imagination —but the world should see that Miss Sapphira was safe from deglutition, either of frivolity or anaconda.
That was also Gregory's point of view; and even in his joy at finding the coast clear, he paused to say, "I am sorry that Fran seems to have lost all reason over this carnival company. If she would show half as much interest in her soul's welfare—"
He left the sentence unfinished. The thought of Grace had grown supreme—it seemed to illuminate some wide and splendid road into a glorious future.
The bookkeeper's desk was in a gallery near the ceiling of the Clinton grocery store; one looked thence, through a picket-fence, down upon the only floor. Doubtless Grace, thus looking, saw him coming. When he reached her side, he was breathless, partly from his struggle through the masses, principally from excitement of fancied security.
She was posting up the ledger, and made no sign of recognition until he called her name.
"Mr. Clinton is not here," she said remotely. "Can I do anything for you?"
He admired her calm courtesy. If at the same time she could have been reserved and yielding he would have found the impossible combination perfect. Because it was impossible, he was determined to preserve her angelic purity in imagination, and to restore her womanly charm to actual being.
"How can you receive me so coldly," he said impulsively, "when I've not seen you for weeks?"
"You see me at church," she answered impersonally.
"But I have been dying to be near you, to talk to you—"