Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/247

Rh "Oh, I just don't like it," she'd reply. "It's so bitter!"

"Nonsense," he'd laugh back at that, seeing through her ruse, and he'd follow up her flimsy excuse with some such taunt as, "Oh, Becky, don't the narrow little shoes squeeze?"

Such jibes would make Reba flush and squirm, but there were certain symbols of wickedness, certain standards of right and wrong, that no amount of holding up to scorn could persuade her to disregard.

To-night, it was after Chadwick Booth had drunk his usually solitary cocktail, and the waiter had departed with the carefully selected order, that Reba decided to open the subject so near her heart. She had waited until now, with careful purpose. All the pretty tributes had been paid her costume, all the day's happenings at the hospital detailed to her, all the latest questions of a certain amusing woman in the Wednesday-night First Aid class repeated and smiled over as usual; and Chadwick Booth had stretched out his long arm, and let his hand drop dead in Becky's lap once, guiding the car nonchalantly with his other hand, and had exclaimed in that small-boy way that appealed so to Reba, "Oh, I'm tired—tired, Becky, to-night. I want to be amused." He had never seemed dearer to her.

They were sitting in a secluded corner in the restaurant, close to a window. They had had to weave their way to this particular spot through a series of other tables nearer at hand, and cross the space in the middle of the room that was cleared for dancing. It was when the music had stopped, after a waltz, to which two or three couples had been dancing, that Reba took a sip of water and then began.