The Happiest Time of Their Lives | Page 3

own supper and began his arrangements for the
family dinner. She felt that the crisis had come.
If she said yes, she knew that her visitor would come just as tea had
disappeared. If she said no, she would sit there alone, waiting for
another half-hour, and when she finally did ring and tell Pringle he
could take away the tea-things, he would look wise and reproachful.
Nevertheless, she did say no, and Pringle with admirable self-control,
withdrew.
The afternoon seemed very quiet. Miss Severance became aware of all
sorts of bells that she had never heard before--other door-bells,
telephone-bells in the adjacent houses, loud, hideous bells on motor
delivery-wagons, but not her own front door-bell.
Her heart felt like lead. Things would never be the same now. Probably
there was some explanation of his not coming, but it could never be

really atoned for. The wild romance and confidence in this first visit
could never be regained.
And then there was a loud, quick ring at the bell, and at once he was in
the room, breathing rapidly, as if he had run up-stairs or even from the
corner. She could do nothing but stare at him. She had tried in the last
ten minutes to remember what he looked like, and now she was
astonished to find how exactly he looked as she remembered him.
To her horror, the change between her late despair and her present joy
was so extreme that she wanted to cry. The best she knew how to do
was to pucker her face into a smile and to offer him those chilly
finger-tips.
He hardly took them, but said, as if announcing a black, but
incontrovertible, fact:
"You're not a bit glad to see me."
"Oh, yes, I am," she returned, with an attempt at an easy social manner.
"Will you have some tea?"
"But why aren't you glad?"
Miss Severance clasped her hands on the edge of the tea-tray and
looked down. She pressed her palms together; she set her teeth, but the
muscles in her throat went on contracting; and the heroic struggle was
lost.
"I thought you weren't coming," she said, and making no further effort
to conceal the fact that her eyes were full of tears she looked straight up
at him.
He sat down beside her on the small, low sofa and put his hand on hers.
"But I was perfectly certain to come," he said very gently, "because,
you see, I think I love you."
"Do you think I love you?" she asked, seeking information.

"I can't tell," he answered. "Your being sorry I did not come doesn't
prove anything. We'll see. You're so wonderfully young, my dear!"
"I don't think eighteen is so young. My mother was married before she
was twenty."
He sat silent for a few seconds, and she felt his hand shut more firmly
on hers. Then he got up, and, pulling a chair to the opposite side of the
table, said briskly:
"And now give me some tea. I haven't had any lunch."
"Oh, why not?" She blew her nose, tucked away her handkerchief, and
began her operations on the tea-tray.
"I work very hard," he returned. "You don't know what at, do you? I'm
a statistician."
"What's that?"
"I make reports on properties, on financial ventures, for the firm I'm
with, Benson & Honaton. They're brokers. When they are asked to
underwrite a scheme--"
"Underwrite? I never heard that word."
The boy laughed.
"You'll hear it a good many times if our acquaintance continues." Then
more gravely, but quite parenthetically, he added: "If a firm puts up
money for a business, they want to know all about it, of course. I tell
them. I've just been doing a report this afternoon, a wonder; it's what
made me late. Shall I tell you about it?"
She nodded with the same eagerness with which ten years before she
might have answered an inquiry as to whether he should tell her a
fairy-story.
"Well, it was on a coal-mine in Pennsylvania. I'm afraid my report is

going to be a disappointment to the firm. The mine's good, a sound,
rich vein, and the labor conditions aren't bad; but there's one fatal
defect--a car shortage on the only railroad that reaches it. They can't
make a penny on their old mine until that's met, and that can't be
straightened out for a year, anyhow; and so I shall report against it."
"Car shortage," said Miss Severance. "I never should have thought of
that. I think you must be wonderful."
He laughed.
"I wish the firm thought so," he said. "In a way they do; they pay
attention to what I say, but they give me an awfully small salary. In
fact," he added briskly, "I have almost no