Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/197

Rh He leaned over and they shook hands. The sort of ecstasy swept over Stephen that any victim of a nightmare feels when he returns to the realm of realities and his physical contacts register properly.

They exchanged a commonplace or two—Helen sweetly, but coolly. Stephen with an impetuosity he didn't try to conceal.

"I saw you, half a mile back," he confessed. "You passed me. I didn't think at first it could be really you. Chance isn't usually so kind to me. By the time I had decided it couldn't possibly be anybody else, you had gone too far ahead for me to overtake you with proper park decorum. So I've been contriving ever since how I might head you off. Again chance has favored me. You might have made half a dozen wrong turns. Or, perhaps it wasn't chance at all. Perhaps it was mental telepathy."

To this boyish outburst of Stephen's Helen replied, still sweetly, still coolly (long practice had made her skillful), "I'm delighted we met, but I scarcely think it was due to mental telepathy. I let my horse choose the turns this morning. I usually ride with my husband and we always come this way."

"Oh, I know you're married, Helen," laughed Stephen boldly, as much as to say, "I suppose you think I ought to be told, I seem so glad to see you."

Helen was not to be perturbed by boldness. She was not a young girl to betray a pounding heart which she had reason to wish to conceal.

Politely, calmly, she inquired, "Are you living in New York now?"

He nodded, smiling. (What a beautiful woman she had become!)