Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/363

 the glow of shaded, yellow lights within the house. When Gregg turned into the walk, he saw a white figure on one of the seats on the lawn; Marjorie called to him in a low, steady stone, "Here I am," and she arose and they came to each other.

She gave him her hands. "Here we are," she said and her palms pressed on his; and he hardly could see her. They went to the bench, but there was no more light.

He wanted her in his arms; he wanted his lips hot on hers. What held him? Not the poorness of his pockets; not that total of debt in Bill's memorandum book. Gregg Mowbry's pockets were used to borrowed money; he was young and he again could be sure of himself. What held him?

"Here we are." He had never heard just that from a girl before; but he knew what it meant, for it spoke what filled him. "Here we are, you and I, and I've become yours and you've become mine. Here we are!"

What held him?

Not Bill, for Bill was gone forever; and this girl never actually had been Bill's, and for long before Bill went she had known it.

Gregg Mowbry who had driven beside Bill on that snowy March night to this house and to Marjorie Hale, that Gregg Mowbry might have seized this girl tight in his arms, kissing her, lifting her, drawing her closer to him,—if he might have imagined her not Bill's but his. He would have said, "We're going to get married, you and I. I'll have another good job soon from somebody." And they might have laughed together.

"Hurry, go get it," she might have said. To be married would have meant to them only to go on together having a light-hearted, irresponsible, "good" time