"You don't remember me?"
She studied him. "I seem to, and yet—"
"I'm Luke Shelby."
"Luke Shelby! Oh yes! Why, how do you do?" She gave him her beautiful hand, but she evidently lacked the faintest inkling of his identity. Time had erased from recollection the boy who used to take her sliding on his sled, the boy who used to put on her skates for her, the boy who used to take her home on his grocery-wagon sometimes, pretending that he was going her way, just for the benizon of her radiant companionship, her shy laughter.
"I used to live here," he said, ashamed to be so forgettable. "My mother was—my stepfather was A. J. Stacom, who kept the hardware-store."
"Oh yes," she said; "they moved away some years ago, didn't they?"
"Yes; after mother died my stepfather went back to Council Bluffs, where we came from in the first place. I used to go to school with you, Phœbe—er—Miss Carew. Then I drove Spate's delivery-wagon for a while before I went East."
"Oh yes," she said; "I think I remember you very well. I'm very glad to see you again, Mr.—Mr. Stacom."
"Shelby," he said, and he was so heartsick that he merely lifted his hat and added, "I'm glad to see you looking so well."
"You're looking well, too," she said, and smiled the gracious, empty smile one visits on a polite stranger. Then she went her way. In his lonely eyes she moved with a goddess-like grace that made clouds of the uneven pavements where he stumbled as he walked with reverted gaze.