Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/364

 seen the last of the supers' costumes on the hooks, the room deserted, and the lights out—lingering over his duties as if he thought in that way to postpone the fact of his dismissal—he met her at the stage entrance with such a look of guilt and apology and broken appeal against her blame that it went to her heart like the sight of tears. "Oh, Don," she cried, "why, why did you bother with me? Why didn't you let me go home? I—I've only made trouble. I"

"Wait," he said, hurrying her out to the refuge of the darker street. "Don't. . . . It's nothing. We're all right."

She took his arm, clinging to him as they walked, neither of them paying any attention to the direction in which they were going. "You shouldn't have done it. You should have let me go."

"No, no. It isn't that. It's all right. I'll find something else with Kidder. I didn't know. I didn't understand how it would all seem to you. Miss Morris—I should have known better than try to—to associate you with those cads. Miss Morris warned me."

"Ah!" she sobbed, "what use am I? What is there that I can do if I can't do even this? I was ungrateful. I said things to hurt you. I didn't even try to help you by being cheerful, by accepting what you got for me."

"Don't," he pleaded. "You"

She shook his arm, almost angrily. "I did! I behaved shamefully. And any other girl, instead of appealing to you, would have slapped his face for him! The pig! What did you do to him?"