Schwitter himself was
watering the worn places on the lawn with the garden can.

The car went by. Above the low hum of the engine they could hear
Tillie's voice, flat and unmusical, but filled with the harmonies of
love as she sang to the child.

When they had left the house far behind, K. was suddenly aware that
Sidney was crying. She sat with her head turned away, using her
handkerchief stealthily. He drew the car up beside the road, and in a
masterful fashion turned her shoulders about until she faced him.

"Now, tell me about it," he said.

"It's just silliness. I'm--I'm a little bit lonely."

"Lonely!"

"Aunt Harriet's in Paris, and with Joe gone and everybody--"

"Aunt Harriet!"

He was properly dazed, for sure. If she had said she was lonely
because the cherry bookcase was in Paris, he could not have been more
bewildered. And Joe! "And with you going away and never coming back--"

"I'll come back, of course. How's this? I'll promise to come back when
you graduate, and send you flowers."

"I think," said Sidney, "that I'll become an army nurse."

"I hope you won't do that."

"You won't know, K. You'll be back with your old friends. You'll have
forgotten the Street and all of us."

"Do you really think that?"

"Girls who have been everywhere, and have lovely clothes, and who won't
know a T bandage from a figure eight!"

"There will never be anybody in the world like you to me, dear."

His voice was husky.

"You are saying that to comfort me."

"To comfort you! I--who have wanted you so long that it hurts even to
think about it! Ever since the night I came up the Street, and you were
sitting there on the steps--oh, my dear, my dear, if you only cared a
little!"

Because he was afraid that he would get out of hand and take her in his
arms,--which would be idiotic, since, of course, she did not care for
him that way,--he gripped the steering-wheel. It gave him a curious
appearance of making a pathetic appeal to the wind-shield.

"I have been trying to make you say that all evening!" said Sidney. "I
love you so much that--K., won't you take me in your arms?"

Take her in his arms! He almost crushed her. He held her to him and
muttered incoherencies until she gasped. It was as if he must make up
for long arrears of hopelessness. He held her off a bit to look at her,
as if to be sure it was she and no changeling, and as if he wanted her
eyes to corroborate her lips. There was no lack of confes