Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/36

 rest. Although I went near enough to touch them, they were so absorbed in each other that they did not see me. Ursula was looking up at Jimmie and his head was bent to her.

"Jimmie," she said, and her rich voice above the tumult was clear as a bell, "do you know how great you are?"

"Yes," he said. "I—I feel a little drunk with it, Ursula."

"Oh," she said, and now her words stumbled, "I—I love you for it. Oh, Jimmie, Jimmie, let's run away and love for a million years" All that he had wanted was in her words—the urge of youth, the beat of the wind, the song of the sea. My heart stood still.

He drew back a little. He had wanted this. But he did not want it now—with Ursula. I saw it and she saw it.

"What a joke it would be," he said, "but we have other things to do, my dear."

"What things?"

The roar of the crowd came louder to their ears. "Harding, Harding! Jimmie Harding!"

"Listen," he said, and the light in his eyes was not for her. "Listen, Ursula, they're calling me."

She stood alone after he had left her. I am sure that even then she did not quite believe it was the 30