Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/177

 "She doesn't know anything about me except that I'm as poor as dirt. Why should she jump up and down and scream with joy? Oh, Evelyn, if I only had more money! Or if I didn't have anyone else depending on me! Your mother's right—twenty-eight years old, and I have to ask you to wait!"

She shivered, pulling closer about her the shawl Ralph Levinson had brought her from Spain. She had worn it to cover the shabby dress, too old to take, that would be given to Clara in the morning. On an ivory background huge dark-hearted roses, soft yellow and pale red, and leaves and tendrils of blue-green, shifted and gleamed as her body moved beneath them.

They were both crazy. Why had she done this insane thing, promised to marry a stranger, so poor, so different from the people of her world? Yet as she turned to look at him she knew that was why she loved him. He was different. Instead of tense excitement he brought her rest; he brought fresh air, cold water, secret bread.

"Evelyn—" Joe said, miserably.

She came to him swiftly, sweetly.

"Darling, it's going to be all right. I know it! I know it!"

"Oh, it is, Evelyn; it is! I'm going to work like hell. I never cared much before, as long as I made enough for mother and me; I always thought of it as just something to do till I got going with designing scenery. I