"Don't you know?"
"No-o."
"Then I'll tell you. Yes, I will tell you," with sudden courage. "I
was at Delilah's this morning, and I saw your picture, and what you had
written on it----"
He stared at her, with a sense of surging relief. If it was only that
he had to explain about--Lilah. A smile danced in his eyes.
"Well?"
"I know you like to--play the game--but I didn't think you'd go as far
as that----"
"How far?"
"Oh, you know."
"I don't."
"Barry!"
"I don't. I wish you'd tell me what you mean, Leila."
"I will." Her eyes were not reproachful now, they were blazing. She
had risen, and with her hands tucked into her muff, and her veil
blowing about her flushed cheeks, she made her accusation. "You wrote
on that picture, 'To the One Girl--Forever.' Is that the way you think
of Delilah, Barry?"
"No. It is the way I think of you. And how did that picture happen to
be in Delilah's possession? I sent it to you."
"To me?"
"Yes, I took it over to you yesterday, and left it with one of the
maids--a new one. I intended, to go in and give it to you, but when
she said you had callers, I handed her the package----"
"And I thought--oh, Barry, what else could I think?"
She was so little and lovely in her tender contrition, that he flung
discretion to the winds. "You are to think only one thing," he said,
passionately, "that I love you--not anybody else, not ever anybody
else. I haven't dared put it into words before. I haven't dared ask
you to marry me, because I haven't anything to offer you yet. But I
thought you--knew----"
Her little hand went out to him. "Oh, Barry," she whispered, "do you
really feel that way about me?"
"Yes. More than I have said. More than I can ever say."
He drew her down beside him on the bench. "Our world won't want us to
get married, Leila; they will say that I am such a boy. But you will
believe in me, dear one?"
"Always, Barry."
"And you love me?"
"Oh, you know it."
"Yes, I know it," he said, in a moved voice, as he raised her hands and
kissed them, "I know it--thank God."