“—just couldn’t sleep nights at all…. Then I got on the job….”
“Let’s see, you’re still with that same company?”
“Yes. Souvenir and Art Novelty Company. And I got awfully on the job there, and so I managed to forget for a little while and—”
“So you really do like me even after I was so beastly to you in England.”
“Oh, that wasn’t nothing…. But I was always thinking of you, even when I was on the job—”
“It’s gratifying to have some one continue taking me seriously…. Really, dear, I do appreciate it. But you mustn’t—you mustn’t—”
“Oh, gee! I just can’t get over it—you here by me—ain’t it curious!… “Then he persisted with the tale of his longing, which she had so carefully interrupted: “The people here are awful kind and good, and you can bank on ’em. But—oh—”
From across the room, Tom’s pretended jeers, lighted up with Miss Proudfoot’s giggles, as paper lanterns illumine Coney Island. From Tom:
“Yes, you’re a hot dancer, all right. I suppose you can do the Boston and all them swell dances. Wah-h-h-h-h!”
“—but Istra, oh, gee! you’re like poetry—like all them things a feller can’t get but he tries to when he reads Shakespeare and all those poets.”