"Let's not take a car--I want some fresh air after that smoky place," she said. "But it was grand.... Let's walk up Fifth Avenue."
"Fine.... Tired, Nelly?"
"A little."
He thought her voice somewhat chilly.
"Nelly--I'm so sorry--I didn't really have the chance to tell you in there how sorry I was for the way I spoke to you. Gee! it was fierce of me--but I felt--I couldn't dance, and--oh--"
No answer.
"And you did mind it, didn't you?"
"Why, I didn't think you were so very nice about it--when I'd tried so hard to have you have a good time--"
"Oh, Nelly, I'm so sorry--"
There was tragedy in his voice. His shoulders, which he always tried to keep as straight as though they were in a vise when he walked with her, were drooping.
She touched his glove. "Oh don't, Billy; it's all right now. I understand. Let's forget--"
"Oh, you're too good to me!"
Silence.
As they crossed Twenty-third on Fifth Avenue she took his arm. He squeezed her hand. Suddenly the world was all young and beautiful and wonderful. It was the first time in his life that he had ever walked thus, with the arm of a girl for whom he cared cuddled in his. He glanced down at her cheap white furs. Snowflakes, tremulous on the fur, were turned into diamond dust in the light from a street-lamp which showed as well a tiny place where her collar had been torn and mended ever so carefully. Then, in a millionth of a second, he who had been a wanderer in the lonely gray regions of a detached man's heart knew the pity of love, all its emotion, and the infinite care for the beloved that makes a man of a rusty sales-clerk. He lifted a face of adoration to the misty wonder of the bare trees, whose tracery of twigs filled Madison Square; to the Metropolitan Tower, with its vast upward stretch toward the ruddy sky of the city's winter night. All these mysteries he knew and sang. What he said was: "Gee, those trees look like a reg'lar picture!... The Tower just kind of fades away. Don't it?"
"Yes, it is pretty," she said, doubtfully, but with a pressure of his arm.
Then they talked like a summer-time brook, planning that he was to buy a Christmas bough of evergreen, which she would smuggle to breakfast in the morning. Through their chatter persisted the new intimacy which had been born in the pain of their misunderstanding.
On January 10th the manuscript of "The Millionaire's Daughter" was returned by play-brokers Wendelbaum & Schirtz with this letter: DEAR SIR,--We regret to say that we do not find play available. We inclose our reader's report on the same. Also inclose bill for ten dollars for reading-fee, which kindly remit at early convenience.