Mr. Wentworth paused. Then, with a quizzical smile, “You’ll be getting married I suppose, now that you’ve got a start in life.”
The telephone rang sharply, and the incident closed. But it was enough for Jimmy. With sudden realization he saw how foolish—how unfair, perhaps—he had been. For during these past two years, since that first morning Mr. Cooper introduced them, he and Estelle had become very good friends.
He had found the president’s daughter, when he got to know her better, quite a likable girl; he was ashamed of his first impression of her. As a matter of fact, Estelle was no different than she ever had been, or ever would be. But Jimmy soon became the most promising young man in her father’s company, if not of her entire acquaintance. She did not exactly “set her cap for him”—she was too proud for that—but she did seek his society upon every possible occasion.
Jimmy had always imagined somehow that Estelle knew all about Anne; but now he realized, with a sudden shock of surprise, that she didn’t—couldn’t—for certainly he could never remember any specific occasion when he had mentioned Anne—either to Estelle or to anybody else. His love for Anne had always seemed so sacred, so far removed from his business life in the city, that the impulse to tell of it never had come to him.
But now he suddenly found himself wondering what Estelle thought of him. And that led him to consider what Anne might have been thinking also. Dear little Anne! He had loved her so much always that he had sometimes forgotten to tell her much about it. Instead, he had described the wonderful business things that were happening to him—his life in the city.
And the things he and Estelle were doing—the opera, the theaters, and all that—he had told it all to Anne with a great personal pride, because it seemed to typify his own success.
How Anne must have felt! Jimmy felt himself very small and mean when his reflections reached this point. He had thought he had learned a lot; but he could see now there were many, many things in life he had yet to learn.
Jimmy took the train for Menchon that same afternoon. He stayed there three days. They were the three most important and wonderful days in his whole life, notwithstanding the wonderful things that had already happened to him.
On the afternoon of the fourth day he was back again in New York, and in Mr. Wentworth’s office. But this time he was not alone, for he held firmly by the hand the shyest, prettiest, dearest little girl in all the world.
Anne was dressed in a mart little tailor-made suit. She wore her hair up now, but her face still had that startled, shy look that always made her seem, to Jimmy, anyhow, just like a sweet, half-frightened little child.