's. There he got a small
bunch of carnations. It was all he could buy with the money he had
with him, and it was too late to go to the bank--and little enough was
there! He started homeward once more.

By the time the apartment was reached he had pulled himself together a
little. With an effort he achieved a smile and went in.

Shirley was waiting for him. "Any word?"

He shook his head. He could not tell her just then, but he could not
trust his voice with a kindly lie.

"Oh, I thought surely we'd hear to-day-- You've brought something for
me?"

"It isn't much."

He gave her the little box--it was rain-soaked now--and saw her face
fall as she peeped within. Always he had brought her some pretty
extravagance on their anniversary. But she kissed him and sent him to
his room to put on dry clothes.

They sat down to dinner, a special dinner with things they both liked
and could not always have. And for a while he tried to be as merry as
the occasion demanded. But not for long. His tongue fumbled over his
poor little jokes and his laughter was lifeless. Shirley saw.

"David, look at me."

His eyes wavered, fell, then rose doggedly to hers.

"What's the matter? Something has happened. Do you mean it's--"

"Yes, Shirley. Dick Holden won."

For a moment she stared blankly at him, then burst into a storm of
weeping. In an instant his own heartache was swallowed up in sorrow
for her. He sprang to her side, catching her close and petting her,
begging her "not to take it so," saying foolish brave things.

The storm subsided as suddenly as it rose. With a sharp movement she
pushed herself away from him and sat looking at him with eyes in which
he would have said, if he could have trusted his senses just then,
anger and--almost--hate were blazing.

"Shirley," he pleaded, "don't take it so. Our plans _were_ good. It
was only pull that beat us. Dick told me--"

The eyes did not change. "It doesn't matter why, does it? They didn't
take them--that's all. What difference does it make if things are good
when nobody will buy them? And I had hoped--"

"Dear, don't take it so," he repeated. "We must be brave. This is
only a test--the hardest of all. If we're brave and keep hanging
on--you remember what we used to say--"

She laughed, not her old beautiful laugh, but a shrill outpouring of
her bitter disappointment.

"Oh, we said a lot of silly things. We were fools. I didn't know what
it