Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/283

 I could only keep on working hard at law, while using every spare moment to increase my income by adding to my hoardings in two senses.

One evening I almost ran into Lily. Kate was still away in Kansas City, so I stopped eagerly enough to have a talk, for Lily had always interested me. After the first greetings she told me she was going home: "they are all out, I believe", she added. At once I offered to accompany her and she consented. It was early in summer but already warm, and when we went into the parlor and Lily took a seat on the sofa, her thin white dress defined her slim figure seductively.

"What do you do?" she asked mischievously, "now that dear Mrs. Mayhew's gone? You must miss her!" she added suggestively.

"I do," I confessed boldly; "I wonder if you'd have pluck enough to tell me the truth?" I went on.

"Pluck?" She wrinkled her forehead and pursed her large mouth; "Courage, I mean", I said.

"Oh, I have courage!" she rejoined.

"Did you ever come upstairs to Mrs. Mayhew's bedroom", I asked, "when I had gone up for a book?" The black eyes danced and she laughed knowingly.

"Mrs. Mayhew said that she had taken you upstairs to bathe your poor head after dancing", she retorted disdainfully, "but I don't care: it's nothing to do with me what you do!"

"It has too," I went on, carrying the war into her country. "How?" she asked.

"Why, the first day you went away and left me though I was really ill", I said, "so I naturally believed that you disliked me though I thought you lovely!"

"I'm not lovely," she said, "my mouth's too big and I'm too slight".