He saw, through a blinding mist, that there were tears in her eyes. 'Ci--Cicely, you don't, you can't mean--that you--too....' 'Please, Henry! Not here! Not now!' They glanced up the street; and down. 'Come this afternoon,' she breathed. 'They'll be there.' 'Come early. Two o'clock. We'll take a walk.' 'Oh--Cicely!' 'Henry!' Their hands were locked together until Madame came out. The carriage rolled away. Henry--it seemed to himself--reeled dizzily along Simpson Street to the stairway that you climbed to get to the _Gleaner_ office. And all along this street of his struggles, his failures, his one or two successes, his dreams, the dingy, two-story buildings laughed and danced and cheered about him, with him, for him--Hemple's meat-market, Berger's grocery, Swanson's, Donovan's, Schultz and Schwartz's barber shop, Stanley's, the Sunbury National Bank, the postoffice--all reeled jubilantly with him in the ecstasy of young love! IX--WHAT'S MONEY! 1 |Henry paused on the sill. The door he held open bore the legend, painted in black and white on a rectangle of tin:-- THE SUNBURY WEEKLY GLEANER By Weaver and Calverly 'How late you going to stay, Hump?' he asked. Humphrey raised his eyes, listlessly thrust his pencil back of his ear, and looked rather thoughtfully at the youth in the doorway; a dapper youth, in an obviously new 'Fedora' hat, a conspicuous cord of black silk hanging from his glasses, his little bamboo cane, caught by its crook in the angle of his elbow. Humphrey's gaze wandered to the window; settled on the roof of the Sunbury National Bank opposite. He suppressed a sigh. 'I may want to talk with you, Hen. I've been figuring----' The youth in the doorway shifted his position with a touch of impatience. 'See here, Hump, you know I can't make head or tail out of figures!' Humphrey looked down at the desk. 'Anyway I'll see you at supper,' Henry added defensively. 'Mildred expects me down there for supper,' said Humphrey. The sigh came now. He pushed up the eyeshade and slowly rubbed his eyes. 'But I may not be able to get away. There are times, Hen, when you have to look figures in the face.' The youth flushed at this, and replied, rather explosively;-- 'A fellow has to do the sorta thing he _can_ do, Hump!' 'Well--will you be at the rooms this evening?' Humphrey's eyes were again taking in the natty costume. And surveying him, Humphrey answered his own question; dryly. 'I imagine not.' 'Well--I was going over to the Watts.' There was a long silence: Finally Henry let himself slowly out and closed the door. Outside, on the landing, he paused again; but this time to button his coat and pull up the blue-bordered handkerchief in his breast pocket until a corner showed. He looked too, by the fading light--it was mid-September, and the sun would be setting shortly, out over the prairie--at the tin legend on the door.