kind; she let me set the pace and she followed any lead.
“Reilly came up to us on the floor and offered to introduce us to folks. I asked him if he remembered the time I gave him out west, and he said he could never forget it and he was now aiming to return it best he knew how. ‘Take it from me,’ I said, ‘that I can get right returns from you if you’ll not give any other fellow the chance to butt in on these dances.’ ‘I’m on,’ he said, and he let us alone.
“We danced every time without talking any. When it came closing time, Reilly came up again and said: ‘This is the hour we quit, but it don’t mean for my guests. Come back in this little room and have refreshments on me.’
“He showed us into a little ring-around-the-rosy room with lights half off and asks: ‘What’ll you have?’
“‘Coffee,’ I said quickly and warningly, and the kid said: ‘I’ll have the same.’
“Reilly laughed – because I took coffee, I suppose. We got it good and hot, with sandwiches and pickles thrown in. Then we talked. Someway she got me to do most of the talking. She wanted to hear all about ranches and cowboys and me. Her eyes got bright, and she said it was better than movies, and she wished she could see my country. I told her she would, because I was going to take her there. She didn’t say anything to that. Pretty soon Reilly comes in and tells me he wants to give us the best time he knows how all right, but were we planning to stay to breakfast? When I saw what time it was, I took the hint and we got right up. I asked him what there was to pay, and he said if I tried to pay, I’d have to do it over his dead body. We went out into the night, only ’twas morning. I asked her what her folks would say.
“‘I have no folks,’ she said kind of sad-like.
“That made me feel good.
“‘I am glad of that,’ I told her, ‘because I want you all to myself.’
“Then I thought she must be working, and I told her I was sorry to have kept her up so late because she’d be too tired to go to work. She said she was out of a job, but was expecting something soon.
“‘I am glad of that, too,’ I said.
“She looked sort of surprised, so I knew I’d been too sudden, but you see, time was short with me. I told her I’d be in Chicago another twenty-four hours and would she help show me around. I had never been on one of the big boats and Reilly had told me about a fine tour to take to some Saint place. She knew where he meant, though she had never been there. She said folks who lived in Chicago didn’t go outside much. They left the trips for visitors. She promised to meet me at the dock in a few hours.
“She wouldn’t let me go all the way home with her. She said she had reasons, and made me leave her on a corner which she said was quite close to where she lived. It was an awful poor part of the city, and I suppose she didn’t want me to know how humble her home was. As if I cared for that! It was so near light I knew she would be safe, but I stood there on guard for a few minutes after she left.
“Believe me, I was right on time at the dock, and she came soon after I did. She had on a plain, dark suit, neat, little shoes, and a hat down over her eyes like the girls in movies wear. I’d passed a corner on the way to the boat where they sold flowers. There were some violets that looked like her. I bought a big bunch and when I gave them to her, she sort of gasped and said no one had ever bought flowers for her before. I was glad to hear that. I asked her hadn’t she ever had a fellow, and she said she hadn’t. I told her I couldn’t see why, unless it was because she didn’t want one. She looked up at me sort of shy and said she might have had one most any time, but that there had never been one she cared for before.
“I could have hugged her right there on the dock for that ‘before,’ but it was time for the boat to start. There weren’t many going. It was early in the season, she said. We went up on deck and sat by the rail and maybe old Lake Michigan didn’t look sparkling! Everything looked sparkling to me. She was as happy as a kid with a new doll, because she had never been on a boat before. When we got to the place – St. Joe, she said it was – there were all sorts of things to do that beat Chicago all to bits for a good time. There was a big sandy beach that made me want to go in the water, but she said it was too early. So we sat in the sun-warmed sand and watched the waves, and we got our pictures taken, and tried a Wheel of Fortune. We went to a big hotel and had a good dinner, though they didn’t have any of the things that were down on their program. The waiter said it was a bill of fare left over from last year. We didn’t mind that. After dinner we rode out to a place to see some guys that looked like pictures in the Old Testament. They lived in David’s House, too.
“It was an awfully short afternoon someway. We had supper at the hotel and took the boat home. What few passengers there were besides us stayed shut up in the cabin, so we had the deck and the light of the new moon all to ourselves.
“She shivered a little, but I had brought an extra coat, because I had seen Reilly before I went and he told me to take one. I wrapped her up in it, and when I buttoned it around her chin, I did what I’d been aching to do since I first met her, but had slipped on my courage. She was looking down in a shy, little way she has – and I kissed her. When she lifted her eyes, there was such a surprised little look in them, I felt just as if I had hurt a baby.
“‘I didn’t mean to do it,’ I said, ‘but I couldn’t help it. Will you forgive me?’
“‘I’ll forgive you,’ she said in a low voice after a moment, ‘but you mustn’t – again.’
“She meant it, so I didn’t, but she let me hold her hand and we sat quiet and watched the moon-shine on the water.
“I asked her if she’d had a good time, and she told me it had been the most wonderful day of her life – different from all others.
“‘Honest?’ I asked.
“She didn’t answer, but looked off over the water, and I saw a tear on her cheek.
“‘Honest?’ I said again.
“‘Yes;’ she said. ‘Honest, and I never knew before what it was to be honest.’
“I didn’t know what she meant, but we had got to Chicago now. It wasn’t very late and I asked her should we go to Reilly’s again, and she said it would spoil the day. I thought so, too. On the way to where I’d left her the night before, there was a little park. We went in and sat on one of the benches. It was only a little clump of trees, but it made a nice place to visit, because there was no one around. People in cities don’t act like they were seasoned to outdoors except when it’s hot weather.
“I was booked to leave the next morning, so I couldn’t let any grass grow. I asked her to marry me.
“‘I wish you hadn’t asked me,’ she said, and her voice sounded like there were tears in her eyes.
“‘Why?’ I asked.
“‘I wish,’ she went on without taking any notice of me – just like she was talking to herself – ‘that I dared love a man like you.’
“That was all I cared to know. For the ghost of a second I held her in my arms, but she slipped out of them, and I saw her face was pale.
“‘You do love me!’ I said.
“‘I do,’ she repeated after me. ‘A lot. If it was a little bit, I’d marry you, but I love you so much, I’ll tell you why I can never marry you. You’re the first man that ever treated me like
