pg8867 [100]
"Play!" he cried.
"Yes. What I mean is that we'd come to the point where it was time to quit playing—well, what we were playing."
"At being lovers, you mean, don't you?"
"Something like that," she said lightly. "For us two, playing at being lovers was just the same as playing at cross-purposes. I had all the purposes, and that gave you all the crossness: things weren't getting along at all. It was absurd!"
"Well, have it your own way," he said. "It needn't have been absurd."
"No, it couldn't help but be!" she informed him cheerfully. "The way I am and the way you are, it couldn't ever be anything else. So what was the use?"
"I don't know," he sighed, and his sigh was abysmal. "But what I wanted to tell you is this: when you went away, you didn't let me know and didn't care how or when I heard it, but I'm not like that with you. This time, I'm going away. That's what I wanted to tell you. I'm going away tomorrow night—indefinitely."
She nodded sunnily. "That's nice for you. I hope you'll have ever so jolly a time, George."
"I don't expect to have a particularly jolly time."
"Well, then," she laughed, "if I were you I don't think I'd go."
It seemed impossible to impress this distracting creature, to make her serious. "Lucy," he said desperately, "this is our last walk together."
"Evidently!" she said, "if you're going away tomorrow night."
"Lucy—this may be the last time I'll see you—ever—ever in my life."
At that she looked at him quickly, across her shoulder, but she smiled as brightly as before, and with the same cordial inconsequence: "Oh, I can hardly think that!" she said. "And of course I'd be awfully sorry to think it. You're not moving away, are you, to live?"
"No."
"And even if you were, of course you'd be coming back to visit your relatives every now and then."
"I don't know when I'm coming back. Mother and I are starting to-morrow night for a trip around the world."
At this she did look thoughtful. "Your mother is going with you?"
"Good heavens!" he groaned. "Lucy, doesn't it make any difference to you that I am going?"
At this her cordial smile instantly appeared again. "Yes, of course," she said. "I'm sure I'll miss you ever so much. Are you to be gone long?"
He stared at her wanly. "I told you indefinitely," he said. "We've made no plans—at all—for coming back."
"That does sound like a long trip!" she exclaimed admiringly. "Do you plan to be travelling all the time, or will you stay in some one place the greater part of it? I think it would be lovely to—"
"Lucy!"
He halted; and she stopped with him. They had come to a corner at the edge of the "business section" of the city, and people were everywhere about them, brushing against them, sometimes, in passing.
"I can't stand this," George said, in a low voice. "I'm just about ready to go in this drug-store here, and ask the clerk for something to keep me from dying in my tracks! It's quite a shock, you see, Lucy!"
"What is?"
"To find out certainly, at last, how deeply you've cared for me! To see how much difference this makes to you! By Jove, I have mattered to you!"
Her cordial smile was tempered now with good-nature. "George!" She laughed indulgently. "Surely you don't want me to do pathos on a downtown corner!"
"You wouldn't 'do pathos' anywhere!"
"Well—don't you think pathos is generally rather fooling?"
"I can't stand this any longer," he said. "I can't! Good-bye, Lucy!" He took her hand. "It's good-bye—I think it's good-bye for good, Lucy!"
"Good-bye! I do hope you'll have the most splendid trip." She gave his hand a cordial little grip, then released it lightly. "Give my love to your mother. Good-bye!"
He turned heavily away, and a moment later glanced back over his shoulder. She had not gone on, but stood watching him, that same casual, cordial smile on her face to the very last; and now, as he looked