Bailey Junior's touch on her arm made her turn: "I am sorry," he said.
"I hope you will not be very unhappy.... And--here is a Christmas
present--"
He took the dazed child's icy little hand in his, and, fumbling the
business rather awkwardly, he finally contrived to snap a strap-watch
over the delicate wrist. It was the one he had been wearing.
"Good-bye, Athalie," he murmured, very red.
The girl gazed at him out of her lovely confused eyes for a moment.
But when she tried to speak no sound came.
"Good-bye," he said again, choking slightly. "I'll surely, surely come
back to see you. Don't be unhappy. I'll come."
But it was many years before he returned to the Hotel Greensleeve.