“Move her into the hotel,” he promised generously. “But you’ve got to marry me in September! Let’s go over to Philena’s grave and pledge it.”
“I don’t think I deserve you, you’re so much in earnest, but I am sort of playing a lovely, interesting part—a wonderful part, too, but I’d really like to have strangers here to see how well I do it,” Thurley tried to explain as they came up to a white cross newer than the surrounding markers on which was engraved:
Philena, beloved grandchild of Betsey Pilrig,
Young, beautiful and good, God numbered her among His angels
At the early age of fifteen!
“Now promise,” Dan insisted, holding her hands.
“I promise,” Thurley answered. Leaning over the cross, they kissed each other with tender solemnity.
“Shall we sit here and talk,” Thurley asked, “or walk back?”
“Anything you like. You’re so beautiful to-day, Thurley, I wonder if you realize how beautiful you are! I’m going to make you wear the proper sort of clothes and send right off for your ring.”
Thurley glanced at her pink cotton blouse and white wash skirt in disdain. “I hate bothering over clothes and yet I’d like rich, weird creations just dropped from the skies. I never could sit and sew like—”
“Lorraine, I suppose!” Dan laughed in spite of himself. “I want to walk over to the Gazette office and put our engagement notice in. I wouldn’t want that to go by another week, if I had to get out an extry. I believe I’d make them get out an extry, too!”
“Did the Gazette ever get out an extry for anything?” she asked.