“Oh, honey! It wa’n’t really the other folks kep’ us down. It was our own selves, our scary selves that we couldn’t break free of.”
She stared out into the wide dusk in amazement. “That’s the truth,” she said at length, with deep conviction. “It’s just the truth. Nobody to blame but our own little selves,” she repeated. “Nobody to blame, not—Why, Tim, not even Elizabeth!”
“No, not even her,” he nodded back.
They were neither of them bitter people; and with this revelation all their resentment towards the rest of the world melted away, leaving their hearts clean-swept and trembling with reverence toward the great happiness and emancipation that was theirs.
“Oh, Tim, I got to try an’ help people,” she whispered, presently. “I’m so happy I got to pour some of it out for somebody. That’s why I got to try an’ help that poor old Miss Fogg.”
“Who’s Miss Fogg?” he questioned.
“She’s that poor thing lives up on the third floor all to herself,” she told him. “Sometimes she shuts herself in for days and days and won’t see a soul, Mrs. Watkins was telling me. She’s awful to look at, just awful. She’s—she’s—oh, Tim, she scares me! She’s what I might have grown into if you hadn’t come. I’ve got to help her! It seems like I owe it to our happiness to try an’ make her happy, to pour life back into her! Oh, honey, you don’t care if I take some of our happiness and give it away, do you?” she cried suddenly, twisting off whimsically.
“Take all you want of it.” He made a gay, large gesture of bestowal. “There’ll always be a plenty to go round.”
They broke into happy laughter together in the dusk.
“Come on,” he proposed, jumping up. “Let’s go get us some ice cream.”