“Can’t I have it here in this carriage?”
“No, you cannot,” he said, decidedly. “I am not going to drive through the streets with a lunching young lady.”
“Then let us make haste,” she said, meekly descending to the pavement.
An hour later, while they were driving to and fro, and he was pointing out objects of special historic interest in the prim old Puritan city, he interposed a question, “How does it all impress you?”
She shook her fluffy head. “Oh, delicious confusion, and noise, plenty of noise! Everything is mixed up to me. I can’t seem to separate things. You show me one house, and I look at it, but it melts at once into others. Everything is so close. How can city people think with all these things to look at? Just see that funny cart! Why, there are real reindeer, like those I once saw in a circus.”
In the utmost satisfaction he contemplated her gleeful, laughing face. “Now,” he said, regretfully, “I must take you back to the hotel. You will not be lonely without me?”
“I shall not be lonely without you,” she said, with determination; but when they stood a little later in the middle of a huge mirror-lined reception-room, she looked askance at the big plush chairs holding out inviting arms to her, and faltered, “You will not be very long?”
He smiled in immense gratification, and to his further surprise received a voluntary caress and a pat on the shoulder, while she lisped, “’Steban, don’t let any of those things run over you.”
He stood waiting for an instant, a slight stealthy colour creeping to his face. But there were no further endearments for him. She was staring out the window with her round, childish eyes; and muttering, “Half a loaf is better than no bread,” he swung himself down-stairs and on to a street-car.
He did not see her again until the next morning. She was tired and had gone to bed was the message he received when he returned to the hotel.