She was taking a curtain call!
Bret tiptoed away, wounded by her and for her. He struggled for self-control a moment, telling himself that he was a fool to blame her for her dreams. He knocked loudly on the door and called to her. She woke with a start, stared, realized where she was and who he was, and smiled upon him lovingly. She explained that she had been asleep and “dreaming foolish dreams.”
But when he asked what they were she shrugged her shoulders and laughed, “I forget.”
Afterward Bret read that “The Woman Pays” had settled down for a long run on Broadway. Sheila settled down also and attended to her knitting. And knitting became a more and more important office. She was more and more content to sit in an easy-chair and wait.
Bret paused one day to pick up some of the curious doll-clothes.
“I knat ’em myself,” said Sheila, with boundless pride.
Bret, the business man, pondered the manufacturing cost.
“You could buy the whole lot for ten dollars,” he said. “And they’ve taken you a month to finish them. You’re not charging as much for your time as you did.”
“No,” she said, “I could buy ’em for less, and it would be still less trouble to adopt a child to wear ’em; but it wouldn’t be quite the same, would it?”