Grace’s thoughts raced madly in the days that followed. She saw herself in new aspects, dramatized herself in new and fascinating situations. She was like a child peering into a succession of alluring shop windows, the nature and value of whose strange wares it only imperfectly understands. Life was disclosing itself, opening long vistas before her. As to men she now believed that she knew a great deal. Confident that she loved Trenton and without regret that she had confessed her love she did not question her happiness. She lived in a paradise whose walls were fashioned of the stuff that dreams are made of. It pleased her to think of herself as a figure of romance and she got from the public library several novels in which young women, imaginably like herself, had given their all for love. She was satisfied that her own case was far more justifiable than those of these heroines.
Her heart was filled with kindness toward all the world. On the day that brought her Trenton’s first letter she went to her father’s new shop in the Power Building carrying lunch for two from a cafeteria. Her father’s silence in his hours at home, his absorption in his scientific books, had for her an increasing pathos. Mrs. Durland referred not infrequently to the fallen estate of the family in terms well calculated to wound him from the very tone of helpless resignation in which they were uttered.
Durland pushed his hat back on his head and stared as Grace appeared in the door of his little shop.
“What’s the matter, Grace? Anything happened?” he asked with his bewildered air.
“Not a thing, daddy. I just thought I’d come around and have lunch; so here’s sandwiches for two.”
“I never eat lunch,” he said, turning reluctantly from the bench at which he had been at work.
“Well, you’re going to today!”
Over his protests she cleared a space on the bench and laid out the contents of her package—sandwiches, cakes and apples. She dusted off a chair for him and then swung herself on to the bench within easy reach of the food. She ignored his warning that there was grease on the bench and flung him a paper napkin.
“The banquet’s begun! Now proceed and tell me how every little thing’s a going.”
“Just about the same, Grace. I’m working on an idea or two. Not sure yet just what I’ve got, but I think maybe I’m on to something that’ll turn out big.”