On the part of Philip and Sunshine Ansley the confidence was such that
Hildred was permitted to take a walk with Tom before his departure for
New York.
"We're not engaged," Hildred reported as part of her mother's
conditions, "and we can't be engaged unless you're proved to be Harry
Whitelaw. Mother thinks you're going to be. So apparently the question
in the long run will be as to whether or not you want me."
"It won't be that. I'm crazy about you, Hildred, more than any fellow
ever was before."
"And that's the way I feel about you, Tom. I don't care a bit about the
things dad and mother think so important. You're you; you're not your
father or your mother, whoever they may have been. I shouldn't love you
any the better if you became the son of Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw. It would
only make it easier."
It was a windy afternoon in April, with the trees in new leaf. All
along the Fenway the bridal-veil made cascades of whiteness whiter than
the hawthorns. Pansies, tulips, and forget-me-nots brightened all the
foot-paths. The two tall, supple figures bent and laughed in the teeth
of the lusty wind.
Rather it was she who laughed, since she had the confidence in life,
while he knew only life's problems. He had always known life's
problems, and though there had never been a time when he was free from
them, he never had had one to solve so difficult as this.
"But that's where the shoe pinches," he declared, "that I'm myself, so
much more myself than many fellows are; and yet, unless I turn into
some one else, I shall lose you."
She threw back her answer with a kind of radiant honesty. "You couldn't
lose me, Tom. I couldn't lose you. We've grown together. Nothing can
cut us asunder. One can't win out against two people who're as willing
to wait as we are."