u.... Oh, it wasn't wrong, was it, when we needed each other
so? It wasn't wrong, was it?"

"Oh no--no!"

"But not--not again--not for a long while. I want you to respect me.
Maybe it wasn't wrong, dear, but it was terribly dangerous. Come, let's
stand out in the cool air on the roof for a while and then you must go
home."

They came out on the flat, graveled roof, round which all the glory of
the city was blazing, and hand in hand, in a confidence delicately happy
now, stood worshiping the spring.

"Dear," he said, "I feel as though I were a robber who had gone crashing
right through the hedge around your soul, and then after that come out
in a garden--the sweetest, coolest garden.... I _will_ try to be good to
you--and for you." He kissed her finger-tips.

"Yes, you did break through. At first it was just a kiss and the--oh, it
was _the_ kiss, and there wasn't anything else. Oh, do let me live in
the little garden still."

"Trust me, dear."

"I will trust you. Come. I must go down now."

"Can I come to see you?"

"Yes."

"Goldie, listen," he said, as they came down-stairs to her hallway. "Any
time you'd like to marry me--I don't advise it, I guess I'd have good
intentions, but be a darn poor hand at putting up shelves--but any time
you'd like to marry me, or any of those nice conventional things, just
lemme know, will you? Not that it matters much. What matters is, I want
to kiss you good-night."

"No, what matters is, I'm not going to let you!... Not to-night....
Good-night, dear."

She scampered down the hall. She tiptoed into the living-room, and for
an hour she brooded, felt faint and ashamed at her bold response to his
kiss, yet wanted to feel his sharp-ridged lips again. Sometimes in a
bitter frankness she told herself that Walter had never even thought of
marriage till their kiss had fired him. She swore to herself that she
would not give all her heart to love; that she would hold him off and
make him value her precious little store of purity and tenderness. But
passion and worry together were lost in a prayer for him. She knelt by
the window till her own individuality was merged with that of the city's
million lovers.

Sec. 3

Like sickness and war, the office grind absorbs all personal desires.
Love and ambition and wisdom it turns to its own purposes. Every day Una
and Walter saw each other. Their hands touched as he gave her papers to
file; there was affection in his voice when he dict