Page:Short Stories (1912).djvu/36

Rh a box behind me. They talked French. I'd seen them there often before. The younger one was an actress. They were there again next night, so was I. Same again next. It was raining. I got them a cab.

"Then I called—fool!Yes."

He paused for a bit, and flicked the ashes out of his pipe.

"Harry, old man, I spooned that woman—I don't know why. She wasn't pretty—at least—no—she wasn't; fine eyes, that's all—but still a kind of face you'd have to turn round and look at twice.

"I used to buy her little presents. She liked the rings I wore. I gave them to her, all but one—a plain broad gold band, with a 'love of a life,' engraved on it in old English letters. She wanted that too—but I couldn't get it off. She got it off, though and looked at it—asked me what the writing was. I laughed and told her, though I felt as if a knife had gone through me. The ring had never left my hand since—since—well, since the girl I'd cared for, put it there and kissed me, under the trees by the gate—at her home.—Heaven! Harry, did you ever care for a woman and believe she'd thrown you up? Pass the billy, old man, I'm not up to speaking so much."

He took a long drink at the tea, and then went on.

"'You love this girl who gave you the ring,' she said. I told her I had cared for her. Then she said 'give it me;' well I couldn't, and I said so.

"She threw it on the ground, and before I could pick it up her heel was on it, and it snapped in two.

"The love of life was indeed broken.

"Then she turned to me—I shan't forget her face—and told me to leave the house. I was going—got to the door—when she fell on the sofa and burst out crying.

"That was kind of rough on me, you know, and I came back again. The first thing I remember was a