“And I’ll bring May Kirke too,” Ruby cries. It may have been the firelight which sends an added redness to the other May’s cheeks, as Ruby utters the name which Jack has said is “the prettiest he has ever heard.”
Ruby escorts her new-found friend down to the hall door, issuing from which Miss Leslie runs full tilt against a young man coming in.
“Oh, Jack,” Ruby cries, “you’re just in time! Miss May’s just going away. I’ve forgotten her other name, so I’m just going to call her Miss May.”
“May I see you home?” Jack Kirke asks. “It is too dark now for you to go by yourself.” He looks straight into the eyes of the girl he has known since she was a child, the girl who has refused his honest love because she had no love to give in return, and May’s eyes fall beneath his gaze.
“Very well,” she acquiesces meekly.
Ruby, looking out after the two as they go down the dark avenue, pities them for having to go out on such a dismal night. The little girl does not know that for them it is soon to be illumined with a light than which there is none brighter save that of heaven, the truest land of love.
It is rather a silent walk home, the conversation made up of the most common of common-places—Jack trying to steel himself against this woman, whom, try as he will, he cannot thrust out of his loyal heart; May tortured by that most sorrowful of all loves, the love which came too late; than which there is none sadder in this grey old world to-day.
“What a nice little girl Ruby is,” says May at length, trying to fill up a rather pitiful gap in the conversation. “Your mother seems so fond of her. I am sure she will miss her when she goes.”
“She’s the dearest little girl in the world,” Jack Kirke declares. His eyes involuntarily meet May’s blue ones, and surely something which was not there before is shining in their violet depths—“except,” he says, then stops. “May,” very softly, “will you let me say it?”
May answers nothing; but, though she droops her head, Jack sees her eyes are shining. They say that silence gives consent, and evidently in this case it must have done so, or else the young man in question chooses to translate it in that way. So the stars smile down on an old, old story, a story as old as the old, old world, and yet new and fresh as ever to those who for the first time scan its wondrous pages; a story than which there is none sweeter on this side of time, the beautiful, glamorous mystery of “love’s young dream.”