"I hate to say that he is—charming," Cope complained.
He was a good sport, and he wanted Becky to be
happy. But it was not easy to sit there and see those two—with the pendulum swinging between them of joy and dreams, and the knowledge of a long life together.
"Why should it be?" he asked Louise, as he stood beside her, later, on their own little porch which overlooked the sea; "those two—did you see them? While I——"
Louise laid her hand on his shoulder. "Yes. I think it is something like this, Arch. They've got to live it out, and life isn't always going to be just to-night for them. And perhaps in the years together they may lose some of their dreams. They've got to grow old, and you, you'll go out—with all—your dreams——"
He reached up and took the kind hand.
"'They all go out like this—into the night—but what a fleet of—stars.' Is that it, Louise?"
"Yes."
The clearness of the moonlight was broken by long fingers of fog stretched up from the horizon.
"I'll wrap up and sit here, Louise," Archibald said; "I shan't sleep if I go in."