Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/197

 Campaspe in this matter. Her instinct even told her that Campaspe had in some way been responsible for Gunnar's disappearance. She had heard, not without bitter astonishment and a deep feeling of resentment that she had not been present to beg him to stay, of Gunnar's sudden leap from the window of the supper-room at Mrs. Pollanger's, and it had not escaped her attention that some one had mentioned Campaspe's presence in the room at the time the evacuation occurred. No, she decided, it was better to struggle alone than to confide in Campaspe at this difficult juncture.

The child then was leading two lives, one in which she strengthened her muscles and acquired agility at the gymnasium of the Brothers Steel, another, in which she dreamed, fully awake, of her effulgent hero. She often fancied him coming for her, lifting her tenderly from her seat in the window and bearing her down a ladder of silken ropes to his waiting car, in which he whirled her swiftly away to an eternity of happiness. A second vision pictured his approach in an aeroplane, which skimmed near enough the earth to enable him to snatch her up to him for a journey of fierce joy through the skies.

And always these fantasies ended with the same self-assuring hope. He will return, and she would spread her arms wide, and whisper to the clouds that passed her window, Come back, Gunnar. I am waiting for you.