CHAPTER XXXI
JOHN FAY
"Denny," said Hagar, "ask Mary Magazine to give you a coffee-cup." Denny came back with it and she filled it from the silver urn. "Rose went to Brooklyn to-night?"
"Yes.—I was to have spoken down on Omega Street, but at the last moment Harding came in and I sent him instead. 'Onward!' 's got the strongest kind of stuff this week, and there are some finishing touches—I'm going back to the office in an hour or two. Rose said that she asked you for that poem, and that you said you would give it, and she thought you might have it ready. I've got a telling place for it—"
"Drink your coffee and talk to the others while I copy it out," said Hagar. She rose and went to the desk in the smaller room. When she came back, Lily was dreaming with her eyes upon the forest bough, and the two men sat discussing Syndicalism. She laid a folded piece of paper upon the table beside Denny's hand. "There are only three verses."
He opened the paper and read them. "Thank you, Hagar! You've struck it home."
He refolded the paper and was about to put it in his pocket when John Fay held out his hand. "Mayn't I see it, too?" He looked at Hagar.
"Yes, of course, if you wish."
Fay read it, held the paper in his hand for a moment, then gave it back to Denny. "I wish I could write like that," he said.
His tone was so oddly humble that Hagar laughed. "I wish that I could build great bridges across deep rivers!" she said.