Where is there the young man who has not told her whom he adored that her eyes made the most brilliant star look like a tallow candle, or that her cheeks were as peaches?
In the same way did I magnify my knightly duty to myself. Surely the dangers along the journey to her home were trifling and few, but, thanks to my love-stirred imagination, I felt as serious as a plumed knight, and no proud queen in days of sword and lance had more devoted cavalier to fight, die or live for her. That now became my sole duty, and with such duty, to serve the best and truest, a man must grow better even in spite of himself.
Every day, rain or shine, I waited on the corner above the school to serve as permanent escort. Every day she told me it was not necessary to see her home, yet, every day she permitted me to do so. When one arrives in a strange land the smaller details are often not noticed, and, afterward, you can only re-see the grander pictures. I cannot tell you how and why the turns in our conversations occurred, but I can remember certain bits of talk and questions, very important to both of us.
For instance, on our third meeting she asked me if I were still one of Mike Callahan's ornamental fixtures. I felt then, as many of us have felt before and will feel again; I was ashamed to admit that I had severed my connection with the gang and had not been there since the night I had taken her home. You see, I still considered myself a "red-hot sport," and did not care to be identified with anything that was goody-goody. Since then I have learned that it is quite the thing among certain sets to speak lightly of one's religion and to laugh at being found out as an occasional church-goer. It makes such a rakish impression to intimate you are "really devilish."
So, to her question, I did not give a straightforward answer, but hummed and hawed and—lied.
"No, I ain't been there the last two nights, because—because, I wasn't feeling any too good, and—and, oh, yes, one night I went up to a show."
The greatest lies can be compressed into the smallest parcels, yet they always weigh the same.
She had a way of letting me know when my lies were too transparent. It was not what she said, but how she looked when she said it.
In reality I had stood away from Callahan's because I had taken a dislike to the place and everybody in it, but, of course, it would have never done to tell that to a little slip of a girl.
Apparently my explanation was not taken at its face value, for she merely said: "Oh, I see." Barely a second later she added: "Oh, I'm so glad."