The Fighting Chance

"Table! As though tables mattered on a night like this!" Then with sudden self-reproach and quick solicitude: "Am I making you walk too far? Wouldn't you like to go in now?"

"No, I'm not tired; I'm millions of years younger, and I'm as strong as the nine gods of your friend Porsena. Besides, haven't I waited for this?" and under his breath, fiercely, "Haven't I waited!" he repeated, turning on her.

"Do--do you mean that as a reproach?" she asked, lowering her eyes.

"No. I knew you would not come on 'the first sunny day.'"

"Why did you think I would not come? Did you know me for the coward I am?"

"I did not think you would come," he repeated, halting to rest on his crutches. He stood, balanced, staring dreamily into the dim perspective; and again her fascinated eyes ventured to rest on the worn, white face, listless, sombre in its fixedness.

The tears were very near her eyes; the spasm in her throat checked speech. At length she stammered: "I did not come b-because I simply couldn't stand it!"

His face cleared as he turned quietly: "Child, you must not confuse matters. You must not think of being sorry for me. The old order is passing--ticking away on every clock in the world. All that inverted order of things is being reversed. You don't know what I mean, do you? Ah, well; you will know when I grow into something of what you think you remember in me, and when I grow out of what I really was."

"Truly I don't understand, Stephen. But then--I am out of training since you went--went out of things. Have I changed? Do I seem more dull? I--it has not been very gay with me. I don't see--looking back across all the noise, all the chaos of the winter--I do not see how I stood it alone."

"Alone?"

"N-not seeing you--sometimes."

He looked at her with smiling, sceptical eyes. "Didn't you enjoy the winter?"

"Do you enjoy being drugged with champagne?"

His face altered so quickly that, confused, she only stared at him, the fixed smile stamped on her lips; then, overwhelmed in the revelation: "Stephen, surely, surely you know what I meant! I did not mean that! Dear, do you dream for one moment that--that I could--"

"No. You have not hurt me. Besides, I know what you mean."

After a moment he swung forward on his crutches, biting his lip, the frown gathering between his temples.

They were passing the big, old-fashioned hotel with its white façade and green blinds, a lingering landmark of the older city.