"Good-night, Reggie!" he said. "Good-night, old top!" He hardly recognized
his own voice. It was quite cheerful, although the little room was hot,
and although, when he stood, he had a perilous feeling that the ceiling was
close above. He deposited Reginald carefully on the floor in front of the
bureau, and the squirrel, after eyeing him, retreated to its nest.
It was late when K. Le Moyne retired to bed. Wrapped in a paper and
securely tied for the morning's disposal, was considerable masculine
underclothing, ragged and buttonless. Not for worlds would he have had
Sidney discover his threadbare inner condition. "New underwear for yours
tomorrow, K. Le Moyne," he said to himself, as he unknotted his cravat.
"New underwear, and something besides K. for a first name."
He pondered over that for a time, taking off his shoes slowly and thinking
hard. "Kenneth, King, Kerr--" None of them appealed to him. And, after
all, what did it matter? The old heaviness came over him.
He dropped a shoe, and Reginald, who had gained enough courage to emerge
and sit upright on the fender, fell over backward.
Sidney did not sleep much that night. She lay awake, gazing into the
scented darkness, her arms under her head. Love had come into her life at
last. A man--only Joe, of course, but it was not the boy himself, but what
he stood for, that thrilled her had asked her to be his wife.
In her little back room, with the sweetness of the tree blossoms stealing
through the open window, Sidney faced the great mystery of life and love,
and flung out warm young arms. Joe would be thinking of her now, as she
thought of him. Or would he have gone to sleep, secure in her half
promise? Did he really love her?
The desire to be loved! There was coming to Sidney a time when love would
mean, not receiving, but giving--the divine fire instead of the pale flame
of youth. At last she slept.
A night breeze came through the windows and spread coolness through the
little house. The ailanthus tree waved in the moonlight and sent sprawling
shadows over the wall of K. Le Moyne's bedroom. In the yard the leaves of
the morning-glory vines quivered as if under the touch of a friendly hand.
K. Le Moyne slept diagonally in his bed, being very long. In sleep the
lines were smoothed out of his face. He looked like a tired, overgrown
boy. And while he slept the ground-squirrel ravaged the pockets of his
shabby coat.