"No, I wouldn't," said Mary quickly.

"Wait till I finish," said Porter, coolly. "I'd have shut you up in a

tower, and every night I'd have come and sung beneath your window, and

at last you'd have dropped a red rose down to me."

They were laughing together now, and Delilah on the other side of

Porter demanded, "What's the joke?"

"There isn't any," said Porter; "it is all deadly earnest--for me, if

not for Mary."

And now a horse was down; there was a quick bugle-note, silence. Like

clockwork, everything had stopped.

People were asking, "Is anybody hurt?"

Barry looked down at Leila. Then he leaned toward her father. "I'm

going to take this child outside," he said; "she's as white as a sheet.

She doesn't like it. We will meet you all later."

Leila's color came back in the sunshine and air and she insisted that

Barry should return to the hall.

"I don't want you to miss it," she said, "just because I am so silly.

I can stay in Porter's car and wait."

"I don't want to see it--it's an old story to me."

So they walked on toward Arlington, entering at last the gate which

leads into that wonderful city of the nation's Northern dead, which was

once the home of Southern hospitality. In a sheltered corner they sat

down and Barry smiled at Little-Lovely Leila.

"Are you all right now, kiddie?"

"Yes," but she did not smile.

He bent down and peered through her veil. "Take it off and let me look

at your eyes."

With trembling hands, she took out a pin or two and let it fall.

"You've been crying."

"Oh, Barry," the words were a cry--the cry of a little wounded bird.

He stopped smiling. "Blessed one, what is it?"

"I can't tell you."

"You must."

"No."

A low-growing magnolia hid them from the rest of the world; he put

masterful hands on her shoulders and turned her face toward him--her

little unhappy face.

"Now tell me."

She shook herself free. "Don't, Barry."

He flushed suddenly and sensitively. "I know I'm not much of a fellow."

She answered with a dignity which seemed to surmount her usual

childishness, "Barry, if a man wants a woman to believe in him, he's

got to make himself worthy of it."

"Well," defiantly, "what have I done?"




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024