“It seems to me that you think a very great deal about that star,” she said roguishly as she accepted the mute invitation of his arm to come and stand beside him.
He wrapped her white-furred dressing gown more closely about her and stowed her long hair in a hood at the back of it. “Now I can see your face. Why should I not think of you, Vivienne? You are a constant source of interest to me with your pretty feminine ways. I don’t think women understand how odd it is for a man who has always lived to himself to have some woman about him with her constant care of him, and her questions as to why he does this thing and that thing and what he is thinking about.”
Vivienne laughed merrily. “Is that why you watch me with such profound interest when I mend your gloves, and why you looked at me in such surprise when I went to your rescue the other day as you struggled with an obstinate necktie?”
“Yes; you are a very fearful and wonderful creation to me at all times; but when I think of you with all your attributes you are a mystery.”
“You are not a mystery to me,” said Vivienne. “I understand you and I am satisfied. Over there is a rookery, Stanton. In the morning you will hear such a cawing.”
“And yonder is the school where you used to sit and look over the trees toward Canada?”
“Yes, Stanton.”
“And read my brief, cold letters, darling? I wish I had known what I know now. How differently I should have written.”
“Yes, I used to read them there, but they did not worry me so very much.”
“And it was there,” he said, “that you, one year ago, put up the photograph to send to me that was to make such a change in my life.”