"Always."

She could not know how dear she became to him then, because not ten
minutes before, from the very lapel against which her cheek lay pressed,
he had unpinned a white carnation.




BACK PAY


I set out to write a love story, and for the purpose sharpened a
bright-pink pencil with a glass ruby frivolously at the eraser end.

Something sweet. Something dainty. A candied rose leaf after all the
bitter war lozenges. A miss. A kiss. A golf stick. A motor car. Or, if
need be, a bit of khaki, but without one single spot of blood or mud,
and nicely pressed as to those fetching peg-top trouser effects where
they wing out just below the skirt-coat. The oldest story in the world
told newly. No wear out to it. Editors know. It's as staple as eggs
or printed lawn or ipecac. The good old-fashioned love story with the
above-mentioned miss, kiss, and, if need be for the sake of timeliness,
the bit of khaki, pressed.

Just my luck that, with one of these modish tales at the tip of my pink
pencil, Hester Bevins should come pounding and clamoring at the door of
my mental reservation, quite drowning out the rather high, the lipsy,
and, if I do say it myself, distinctly musical patter of Arline. That