"You don't know how happy I was when I found your letter at the store
this morning. The manager doesn't like girls to get letters, he is
an awful fossil, but he's rather keen on me. I told him your letters
were from an uncle who isn't friends with mother."
"What a darling little liar you are!" said Ronnie amused. "My dear,
I've missed you terribly. I shall have to give up my writing, if it
is going to keep me from my girl."
She snuggled closer to his side as they walked slowly through the
gloom to her favorite spot. She did not tell him how she had sat
there every evening, braving the importunities of those less
attractive ghouls who haunt the park in the hours of dusk.
"There have been times," said Ronnie when they had found chairs and
drawn them to the shadow of a big elm, "when I felt that I could
write no more unless I saw you for a moment. But I set my teeth and
worked. I pretend sometimes that you are sitting on the other side
of the table and I look up and talk to you."
"You are like Christina," said the delighted girl, "she makes up
things like that. Would you have liked to see me really walk into
the room and sit down opposite to you?"
He held her more tightly. "Nine-tenths of my troubles would vanish,"
he said fervently, "and I could work--by heaven, how I should work if
I had the inspiration of your company! I wish you weren't such a
dear little puritan. I'm half inclined to engage a housekeeper if
only to chaperon you."
He waited for a rejoinder, but it did not come.
"You have such queer ideas about how people should behave," he said.
"In fact you are awfully old-fashioned, darling."
"Am I--I suppose I am."
"Why, the modern girl goes everywhere, bachelor parties and
dances--chaperons are about as much out of date as the dodo."
"What is a dodo?"
"A bird--a sort of duck."