Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/61

 delicious pangs of doubt and glory and anger, asked for explanations.

"And do you mean to say there never was any Alice, the beautiful Telephone blonde?" she said. "What a fraud you are!"

"Of course not," he said. "You dear, delightful innocent, I just had to cook up some excuse for coming up to see you. And you can't be angry with me now, Ann, because in your own answer to Sincerity's letter you said the girl ought not to be offended. You told me to take a chance! Just think what self-control I had, that first time I came up to see you, not to blurt out the truth."

And then he tore off a scrap of margin from the newspaper and measured her finger for a ring.

There were happy evenings that winter, when Ann, after finishing her stint at the office, would hasten up their rendezvous at Piazza's little Italian table d'hôte. Here, over the minestrone soup and the spaghetti and that strong Italian coffee that seems to have a greenish light round the edges of the liquid (and an equally greenish taste), they would discuss their plans and platitudes, just as lovers always have and always will. As for Ann, the light of a mystical benevolence shone