FullReads

They moved slowly along under the bare trees. A sullen sunset colored the western sky. The drive was filled with motor-cars, and groups of riders galloped on the muddy bridle-path. It was just dusk. Suddenly, as the lamplighters went their rounds, all the park bloomed with milky disks of light.

“You see,” Sammy went on presently, “I’ve thought this all out. Anthony’s a good man, and he loves me, and I–well, I’ve promised. What RIGHT have I to say calmly that I’ve changed my mind, and to hurt him and make him ridiculous before all the people he loves? He knows I’ll have money some day–no, Piet, you needn’t look so! That has nothing to do with it! But, of course, he KNOWS it; and I said we would have a motor,–he’s wild for one!–and entertain, don’t you know, and that’s what he’s waiting for and counting on. He doesn’t DESERVE to be shamed and humiliated. And, besides, it would break his mother’s heart. She’s been awfully sweet to me. And it must be a BITTER thing to be told that you’re not good enough for the woman you love. Anthony saved my life, you know, and I can’t break my word. I said: ‘On my oath, I’ll come back.’ And just because there IS a difference between him–and us,” she hesitated, “he’s all the prouder and more sensitive. And it’s only a difference in surface things!” finished Sammy, loyally.

Piet was silent.

“Why, Tom keeps telling me that mother was a Cabot, and grandfather a judge, and talking Winthrop Colony and Copleys and Gilbert Stuarts to me!” the girl burst out presently. “As if that wasn’t the very REASON for my being honorable! That’s what blood’s for!”

Still Piet was silent, his kind, ugly face set and dark.

“And then, you know,” said Sammy, with sudden brightness, “when I get back, and see the dear old place again, and get a good big breath of AIR,–which we don’t have here!–why, it’ll all straighten out and seem right again. My hope is,” she added, turning her honest eyes to the gloomy ones so near her, “my hope is that Anthony will be willing to wait a while–“

“What makes you think he is likely to?” said Piet, dryly.

There was a silence. Then he added:

“When do you go?”

“The–the twenty-sixth, I believe. I’ve got aunty’s consent–I go with the Archibalds to San Francisco.”

“And this is–?”

“The twentieth.”

For some time after that they wove their way along the sweeping Parkroads without speaking, and when they did begin to talk to one another again, the subject was a different one and Mr. van Soop was more cheerful. The tea hour was a fairly merry one. But when he left Sammy, an hour later, at her aunt’s door, he took off his big glove, and grew a little white, and held out his hand to her and said:

“I won’t see you again, Sammy. I’ve been thinking it over. You’re right; it’s all my own fault. I was very wrong to attempt to persuade you. But I won’t see you again. Good-by.”

“Why–!” began Sammy, in astonishment; then she looked down and stammered, “Oh–,” and finally she put her little hand in his and said simply:

“Good-by.”

Therefore it was a surprise to Mr. van Soop to find himself entering Mrs. Bond’s library just twenty-four hours later, and grasping the hands of the slender young woman who rose from a chair by the fire.

“Sammy! You sent for me?”

Sammy looked very young in a little velvet gown with a skirt short enough to show the big bows on her slippers. Her eyes had a childishly bewildered expression.

“I wanted you,” she said simply. “I–I’ve had a letter from Anthony. It came only an hour ago. I don’t know whether to be sorry or glad. Read it! Read it!”

She sat on a little, low stool by the fire, and Piet flattened the many loose pages of the letter on his knee and read.