Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/29

 old-fashioned oath of marriage, he imagined himself beside a girl very like Marjorie Hale; indeed, when he thought of her, he wanted her no different from Marjorie; and yet he would not let himself think of marrying Marjorie Hale; for, as Jim Cuncliffe had said, she was Bill's and the only girl whom Billy had ever loved. Gregg had cared about a lot of other girls; and he knew himself well enough to believe he was likely to care for many more.

Yet he had never felt for any girl as he was feeling for Marjorie Hale now; as he drew nearer and nearer to her, he found himself for the first time forgetful, during long stretches of his musings, of the fact that she was Billy's girl; he was thinking of her as the girl whom he must protect from a blighting danger threatening her of which Billy was not even aware.

When, with a start, Gregg came back to consciousness of Bill, it seemed unfair somehow not to let him know; then Gregg glanced at Bill's familiar, clean-cut, obstinate face. Good old Bill! How little he let himself know about the low in life; he simply did not think of the low as existing for him or for his; and now for Gregg to take him into this affair! Cuncliffe was right; Gregg could not hand Bill anything like that.

The car, having passed through Lincoln Park, was rushing on beside miles of apartments, shops and motion-picture theaters and soon approached a gay, brightly lighted district of resplendent, garish buildings where, a few years ago, had stretched the wide lawns and winding roads and patches of bush and "woods" about family homes of which Eugene Field had sung in his poems. Not far away to one side had lived Eugene Field and over there had been the "Waller