A new incident for that delectable yarn now popped into her head. Fred was talking about the corn which had nothing whatever to do with Struby's or the cashier at Bernstein's. She stopped and whistled as the revelation of new possibilities in her story flashed upon her.
"What's the matter, Phil?"
"Nothing," she answered. "I just thought of something!"
Phil rested her arms on the top rail of the fence and lifted her eyes dreamily to the glowing planet that for the moment reigned alone in the heavens. But her thoughts were in Main Street, not in Jupiter. The inspector on the trolley line—the one with the red mustache, the one who had punched the head of a conductor for disputing the justice of a reprimand for which the inspector had been responsible—he must certainly be brought into the story. She was disgusted with herself that it had never occurred to her before. The adored cashier should enter the drug-store to refresh herself with a chocolate sundae, and the inspector should follow—"
"Phil," said Fred.
Phil, intent upon her characters, did not respond. She did not know that her face lifted to the bright planet had quickened his pulses, roused a thousand longings in his heart.
His hand stole along the rail until it touched hers. In her deep absorption she did not notice it, or pretended that she did not; but when he took a step nearer she drew her hand away gently. The star held her gaze as though it possessed some mesmeric power. A smile was upon her face as the situation at the soda-water counter took form, became a veritable drama in her imagination.
She struck her hands together and chirruped. Fred stared at her, abashed. His hand lay where it had been, but her warm slim fingers had slipped away! When Phil was "thinking" she wholly bewildered him. Just as a girl, the loveliest in the world, Phil was far enough removed from him; but as a girl who "wrote," who improvised verses, who was caught away as by invisible hands in her fitful dreaming, she deepened his humility. He had often wondered whether he would ever gain courage to touch her hand in just that way; and now that he had dared it had profited him nothing. She had apparently been wholly unmindful of an act that had left him trembling. She hadn't even resented it!
"Phil, I've been looking forward to seeing you all day. I've been thinking about you—particularly."
"That's not so surprising," replied Phil, returning to earth a little reluctantly, "when I've been seeing you every evening and it was pretty sure to happen so to-day. Let's hurry along or Amy will say bitter things to us that he will always regret."