There was much dark wood and the worn red velvet—low bookshelves lining the walls, a grand piano on a cover by the window. In the dimness Jean's copper head shone like the halo of a saint. Mary decided that Derry was "queer-looking," until gathering courage, she went in and was warmed by his smile.
"He hasn't had any lunch, Mary," Jean told her, "and he wouldn't let me get any for him."
"I'll have something in three whisks of a lamb's tail," said Mary with Elizabethan picturesqueness, and away she went on her hospitable mission.
"Marrying just now," said Derry, picking up the subject, where he had dropped it, when Mary came in, "is out of the question."
"Did you think that I was marrying you for your money?"
"No. But two months' pay wouldn't buy a gown like this,"—he lifted a fold with his forefinger—"to say nothing of your little shoes." He dropped his light tone. "Oh, my dear, can't you see?"
"No. I can't see. Daddy would let us have this house, and I have a little money of my own from my mother, and—and the Connollys would take care of everything, and we should see the spring come, and the summer."
He rose and went and stood with his back to the fire. "But I shan't be here in the spring and summer."
She clasped her hands nervously. "Derry, I don't want you to go."
"You don't mean that."