Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/367

 and left them alone, strangely quiet in this towering temple of commerce.

The lights outside were reflecting themselves in cold puddles of water on the Common, and he was on his knees, his head in Rhoda's comforting lap. Once or twice there was a warm splash on the back of his hand. It seemed to him that after this night there would be nothing left for him that he could face without flinching—not even the dingiest cafe in Paris.

"Until you found someone," he heard himself grotesquely saying, and for the life of him he couldn't pin the remark to anything that had gone before.

She was stroking his hair, "I'll never find anyone," she said, "If I wait forever. There just isn't any substitute. It's silly to say it, but it's true."

He looked up, and saw her eyes moist and shining in the murky light. "But when you've found the right man for the job?"

"About that time," she said, "you'll have finished a new novel in five syllables."

"Oh, do you think so?"

"I'm afraid I think so," she ruefully confessed.

"Meanwhile?"

"Meanwhile you'll be doing one-syllable things for us."

"Do you think we ought to get married, or anything?"

"I do," whispered Rhoda, and the whisper turned