Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/235

Rh to tell him about her marriage, and the very next time they met. What a relief it would be to share at last with somebody else this ghost-like thing that had menaced her peace of mind so long! She would tell Dr. Booth how she was really more married to him already. He, so experienced, and worldly-wise, would know how to advise and guide her. In his world, Reba felt sure, there must be ways of escaping a rigid adherence to a hasty and ill-timed promise, at the price of a heaven-ordained love such as theirs and without publicity, perhaps. Thus Reba, the once morally-literal, single-motived Reba, like many another daughter of Eve, saw her great desire as a lofty thing beside which everything else dwindled to small proportions, and for the realization of which she could so easily ride over and trample down everything in the way of an obstacle.

She didn't, however, tell Chadwick Booth about her marriage the next time they met. There didn't seem to be just the right opportunity for it. For Dr. Booth did not ask Reba to marry him the next time he saw her after the picnic supper, as Nathan had done after that significant night in the moving-picture theater. Though it occurred to Reba to tell Dr. Booth about her marriage even before he had made his formal proposal, she feared that it might seem to him bold and forward of her, to confess to him so intimate a thing, before he considered their courtship ripe enough for a betrothal.

He would, of course, declare himself soon, for he had been just as eager to be with her, and alone with her too—more than ever before, Reba thought—on the all-day boat-trip he took her on, following close upon