“You were making over my ermine cape. Is it finished?”
And Loring! He, for a change, was a physician there in Braleigh and lived with his sister in Lankester Way, near her home, only hers was in a cheaper street. He was young and good-looking but seemed to think only of his practice, how it was to make him and achieve her perhaps, although it had all seemed so commonplace and practical to her. He was so keen as to his standing with the best people, always so careful of his ways and appearance, as though his life depended upon it. He might have married more to his social and financial advantage but he had wanted her. And she had never been able to endure him—never seriously tolerate his pursuit.
“Yes, if you would alter these sleeves I might like it.”
Whenever he saw her he would come hustling up. “My, but it’s nice to see you again, Ulrica. You are always the same, always charming, always beautiful—now don’t frown. Have you changed your mind yet, Ulrica? You don’t want to forget that I’m going to be one of the successful men here some day. Please do smile a little for me. I’ll be just as successful as Joyce or any of them.”
“And is it just success you think I want?” she had asked.
“Oh, I know it isn’t just that, but I’ve had a hard time and so have you. I know it wouldn’t do any good to offer you only success, but what I mean is that it makes everything so much easier. With you I could do anything—” and so he would ramble on.
“To McCafferey’s, the Post Street entrance.”
But the shrewd hard eyes and dapper figure and unvaried attention to his interests had all bored and after a time alienated her, since her ideal seemed to dwarf and discolor every one and everything. Was there not something somewhere much bigger than all this, these various and unending men, she had asked herself, some man not necessarily so successful financially but different? She had felt that she would find him somewhere, must indeed if her life was to mean anything to her. Always her great asset, her beauty, had been looked upon as the one thing she must keep for this other. And so it had gone, man after man and flirtation after flirtation. It had seemed as though it would never end. Even after she had transferred her life to the great city, to work, to go upon the stage if need be, there were more of these endless approaches and recessions; but, like the others, they had come and gone, leaving only a faint impression. Not until that day at Althea’s party in the rooming-house in which they both lived had she found the one who touched her.
And then—
“And now to the Willoughby.”