“You don’t come past here as often as you did, Shirley,” he complained tenderly. “At least, I don’t seem to see you so often,” he added with a smile. “It isn’t anything I have done, is it?” he queried, and then, when she protested quickly, added: “What’s the trouble, Shirl? Haven’t been sick, have you?”
She affected all her old gaiety and ease, feeling as though she would like to cry.
“Oh, no,” she returned; “I’ve been all right. I’ve been going through the other door, I suppose, or coming in and going out on the Langdon Avenue car.” (This was true, because she had been wanting to avoid him.) “I’ve been in such a hurry, most nights, that I haven’t had time to stop, Bart. You know how late the store keeps us at times.”
He remembered, too, that in the old days she had made time to stop or meet him occasionally.
“Yes, I know,” he said tactfully. “But you haven’t been to any of our old card-parties either of late, have you? At least, I haven’t seen you. I’ve gone to two or three, thinking you might be there.”
That was another thing Arthur had done—broken up her interest in these old store and neighborhood parties and a banjo-and-mandolin club to which she had once belonged. They had all seemed so pleasing and amusing in the old days—but now— * * * * In those days Bart had been her usual companion when his work permitted.
“No,” she replied evasively, but with a forced air of pleasant remembrance; “I have often thought of how much fun we had at those, though. It was a shame to drop them. You haven’t seen Harry Stull or Trina Task recently, have you?” she inquired, more to be saying something than for any interest she felt.
He shook his head negatively, then added:
“Yes, I did, too; here in the waiting-room a few nights ago. They were coming down-town to a theater, I suppose.”
His face fell slightly as he recalled how it had been their custom to do this, and what their one quarrel had been about. Shirley noticed it. She felt the least bit sorry for him, but much more for herself, coming back so disconsolately to all this.