Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/28

 believed in letting future difficulties look out for themselves.

He observed that the great castle of the Potter Palmer home was still dark and closed; something seemed to be going on at the Reynolds'; and at Victor Lawson's house; and evidently there was a dinner at the Cranes'; probably for those official French people who were in the city, Gregg thought. The possessors of some of the homes on the Drive were more than mere names to him; for he had been a guest at an occasional semi-public entertainment in certain of the mansions he passed. But it never occurred to Gregg to dream of owning one of them; indeed, his hazardings of his future were altogether too vague to picture himself founding a family. Gregg meant to marry, but the thought of a girl never started such institutional ideas in his head as belonged in Billy's.

Gregg expected only that some day he was to discover that he no longer could be satisfied with mere friendship with a certain girl—with bantering, teasing talks, broken by sudden, serious interludes of confidences; no longer content with handclasps at greeting and with the intimate, and yet so meaningless, embrace of a dance; no longer satisfied by an hour of wandering beside the lake on an autumn day or by an evening at her side in a theater. Some day the reluctant, lingering good-by at midnight no longer would be tolerable; and she and he together would agree to explore that mystery of love which neither of them knew.

In these days, when Gregg fancied what sort the girl might be who would stand with him "in the presence of God and this company," to take the queer,