mean thing I might have said to
her--not meaning anything, but hasty-like, as a man will. Couldn't seem
to get over it. Evenings were just hell; they were so--empty. Even when
I was out on the road, there wasn't anybody to write to, anybody that
cared. Just sit in a hotel room and think about her. And I just
couldn't realize that she was gone. Do you know, Miss Golden, for
months, whenever I was coming back to Boston from a trip, it was _her_ I
was coming back to, seemed like, even though I _knew_ she wasn't
there--yes, and evenings at home when I'd be sitting there reading, I'd
think I heard her step, and I'd look up and smile--and she wouldn't be
there; she wouldn't _ever_ be there again.... She was a lot like
you--same cute, bright sort of a little woman, with light hair--yes,
even the same eye-glasses. I think maybe that's why I noticed you
particular when I first met you at that lunch and remembered you so well
afterward.... Though you're really a lot brighter and better educated
than what she was--I can see it now. I don't mean no disrespect to her;
she was a good sport; they don't make 'em any better or finer or truer;
but she hadn't never had much chance; she wasn't educated or a live
wire, like you are.... You don't mind my saying that, do you? How you
mean to me what she meant--"

"No, I'm glad--" she whispered.

Unlike the nimble Walter Babson, Mr. Schwirtz did not make the
revelation of his tragedy an excuse for trying to stir her to passion.
But he had taken and he held her hand among the long grasses, and she
permitted it.

That was all.

He did not arouse her; still was it Walter's dark head and the head of
Walter's baby that she wanted to cradle on her breast. But for Mr.
Schwirtz she felt a good will that was broad as the summer afternoon.

"I am very glad you told me. I _do_ understand. I lost my mother just a
year ago," she said, softly.

He squeezed her hand and sighed, "Thank you, little sister." Then he
rose and more briskly announced, "Getting late--better be hiking, I
guess."

Not again did he even touch her hand. But on his last night at the
farm-house he begged, "May I come to call on you in New York?" and she
said, "Yes, please do."

She stayed for a day after his departure, a long and lonely Sunday. She
walked five miles by herself. She thought of the momently more horrible
fact that vacation was over, that the office would engulf her again. She
declared to herself that two weeks w