"I like it better here."
The evening was dark, clear and windy, with the stars trooping out.
"When," asked Hagar, "are you going to build another bridge?"
He pondered it. "I've been building for a long time and I'm going to build for another long time. Do you grudge me this half-year in between?"
"I do not. I was only wondering—" She broke off and began to talk about the Josslyns whom, it had turned out, he knew and liked. Two weeks ago she had dined there with him, and Christopher had taken occasion to tell her that John Fay was about the rightest all right he knew.... She had not really needed the telling. She had a good deal of insight herself.
They came to the great arched door of the apartment house, and there she told Fay good-night. When he was gone, she stood for a moment in the paved lobby with its palm or two, her eyes upon the clear darkness without; then she turned to the elevator.
Upstairs, within her own doors, Thomasine met her. "Oh, Hagar! It's Mr. Ralph—"
"Ralph!"
Ralph had been abroad, and she had not seen him for a long time.