Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/286

 knew, life had dealt so harshly, "sometimes I wish we could have known each other when I was as young and baby-eyed as those girls that go up and down Fift' Avenue, ev'ry afternoon! Why couldn't this have come to me before I got mixed up with all those things I can't get away from?"

Wilsnach felt the raven wing of tragedy that fluttered over them, and he did his best to brush it away. "Then I would never have known you! I wouldn't have been fit to sit beside you! And the dead past has buried its dead, and we're not going to dig it up. We've got a whole lifetime to look forward to!"

"A whole lifetime!" she echoed.

"And once we've helped Kestner clear up this Keudell case we'll be free to start over."

He thought, for a moment, that the sudden release of his hand was due to her resentment at the intrusion of those sterner realities which they had for the moment evaded. But he saw that it was actually due to the fact that their funereal waiter was returning to the table. And from the first Sadie had most heartily disliked that waiter.

They sat in silence until the funereal figure once more took its laggard departure. Then the estuary