Page:Fifty Candles (1926).djvu/63

 “You let me look at you. Encouragement enough.”

“Look at me—and pity me.”

“Now don’t start that. It’s love!”

“No—pity.”

“Love, I tell you.”

This might have gone on indefinitely, but suddenly Carlotta Drew’s voice broke in, calling, and Mary Will fled, just as I had nearly got her hand. She fled, and that dim room was instantly old and stale again.

I stood alone with the past. My thoughts were most jumbled, chaotic. Drews—Drews innumerable—were looking down at me, wondering, perhaps, about this stranger who dared make love in the very room where they themselves had laughed and loved in the old far days. Wonderful days that glittered with the gold men were extracting from California’s soil. Gone now, forever. And lovely ladies, turned to dust. Ugh—unpleasant thought! Look Rh