Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/343

Rh I don't want to know you any faster than is proper for two people who've got only as far as we have. Don't you see? Don't you understand?"

It was Nathan's voice that caught and broke now. As he leaned toward her, Reba saw that his forehead was damp with perspiration. She could hear him breathing. His obvious emotion was like a little stab in a spot in her breast she thought was dead to feeling. She drew in her breath with a little audible sound of surprise.

Suddenly Nathan stood up. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead (his eyes, surreptitiously, too), put the handkerchief away again; drew in his breath very deep; let it out. Then, first glancing at his wrist-watch, he said in a perfectly matter-of-fact tone, "Well, I suppose I better be getting back to my quarters pretty soon. An old tentmate of mine and I are sharing a room together at the Y.M.C.A. I've no engagement for this evening. Perhaps you haven't either. If you haven't, will you have dinner with me somewhere, and go to the theater afterward? Among other things Mrs. Barton taught me, was the proper time for young ladies to be dropped at their front doors."

Reba's eyes softened. Was ever a man so gallant as this? Her face lighted. She smiled.

"I'd like to go to the theater with you very much," she said; "if you're sure it's quite proper for us to go without a chaperon," she added with droll little upward glance at him. Her eyes were sparkling with tears, but they were sparkling with something else beneath, which Nathan had never seen in their brown depths before—humor. Fisherman's luck!