Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction; Women -- Conduct of life -- Fiction
She stopped at a corner, uncertain of the street by which she and Harley
had come. He stopped also. “I would be very glad to help,” he said, “if
you would permit me.”
“Thank you,” she said, “but I really think that my cousin will find it.
We had not come far.”
Again there was a pause. As she went on, he was near her, looking
diligently. After a while she began to find the silence awkward, but she
did not like to send him away, and she did not like to speak again. So
it was with real relief that, looking down the street, she saw Harley
coming. “There’s my cousin!” she said. “Oh, I _do_ hope he’s found it.”
“He doesn’t act as if he had,” remarked the other; and Sylvia’s heart
sank, for she saw that Harley walked slowly, and with his eyes on the
ground.
When he was near enough she asked, “You haven’t found it?”
“No,” he answered. “It’s gone, I fear.”
“Oh, too bad! too bad! What can we do?”
Harley had come near. Sylvia saw that he looked at the man she was with,
but there was no recognition between them. Evidently they did not know
each other. Then, without offering to stop, Harley passed them, saying,
“I’ll look back this way.”
“I don’t think that’s worth while,” said the girl. “I’ve searched
carefully there.”
“I’d better look,” replied the other, who had quickened his pace and was
already some distance off.
“But wait, Harley!” she called. She wanted to explain to him how
thoroughly she had searched; and, more important yet, she wanted to get
decently rid of the stranger.
But Harley went on, paying no attention to her. She called him again,
with some annoyance, but he did not stop, and in a moment more had
turned a corner. She was perplexed and angered by his conduct—more and
more so as she thought of it. How preposterous for him to brush past in
that fashion, and leave her with a man she did not know! “What in the
world can he mean?” she exclaimed. “There’s no need to search back there
any more!”
She stood, staring into the half-darkness. When after a moment he did
not reappear, she repeated, helplessly, “What did he mean? What did he
mean?”
She looked at her companion, and saw an amused smile upon his face. Her
eyes questioned him, and he said, “I suspect he saw you were with _me_.”
For a moment Sylvia continued to stare at him. Then, realizing that here
was a serious matter, she looked down at the ground—something which the
search for the medallion gave her the pretext for doing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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