“Will you sing Maying for an old friend?”
... The song choked the wanderer, and this was the new mystery of Maying—that it left him at the stone gate of a door-yard beyond windy Auckland....
He sent forward a gift of flowers, and was in a daze when she came to him and sat down.
“I have only a few minutes. We sing once more and then go. How dark and thin you look!”
He wanted to see her after her work was done, but dared not ask until other things were said.... There were words that left no impress, until he heard himself saying:
“I read the New York papers at sea——”
“... The reporters came to me. I had told some one of seeing you. It was just after I had read the news. It was new to me to have reporters come—and somehow they got what they wanted——”
“Oh, that didn’t matter. Only it was all unnecessary. My accounts there were never other than straight.”
She said she was glad. He saw she was more glad to drop the subject, and didn’t exactly believe him.