Eldridge stepped outside. A man looked at him and moved up, falling into step beside him. “I have a couple of tickets—” he said softly.
He did not know that he was speaking to a man on a quest, a man who would have paid whatever he might ask for the slips of paper in his hand—They were not mere symphony tickets he sold. They were tickets to the fields of the sun. He asked five dollars for them; he might have got fifty.
Eldridge slipped them into his pocket. He stepped back into the hall. “I shall not need those tickets,” he said.
The man in the window glanced at him, indifferent, and crossed out a name.
All the way home Eldridge’s heart laughed. Would she like it?... She had played so softly... she would listen like that—and he would be with her.... He could not keep the tickets in his pocket. He took them out and looked at them—two plain blue slips with a few black marks on them.... And he had thought of it himself!—It was not Mr. El-dridge Walcott’s money that bought them for her.... Would she understand it was not money—?
She took them from him with half-pleased face—“For the Symphony?” she said.
“I thought you might—we—. might like it—”
She looked at them a minute. “I never went to a symphony—”
“Nor I—” He laughed a little. “I thought we might—try it.”
She was still regarding them thoughtfully. “I haven’t anything to wear—have I—?” She looked up with the wrinkled line between her eyes.