He made selections with a memory of the girl's beautiful, refined face.
He chose simple things and everything all white. He asked about details
and gave directions so that everything would move in an orderly manner,
with nothing to annoy. He even thought to order flowers, valley-lilies,
and some bright rosebuds, not too many to make her feel under
obligation. He took out his check-book and paid for the whole thing,
arranging that the girl should not know how much it all really cost, and
that a small sum might be paid by her as she was able, to be forwarded
by the firm to him; this to make her feel entirely comfortable about it
all.

As he went out into the street again a great sense of weariness came
over him. He had lived--how many years had he lived!--in experience
since he left the university at half past five o'clock? How little his
past life looked to him as he surveyed it from the height he had just
climbed. Life! Life was not all basket-ball, and football, and dances,
and fellowships, and frats. and honors! Life was full of sorrow, and
bounded on every hand by death! The walk from where he was up to the
university looked like an impossibility. There was a store up in the
next block where he was known. He could get a check cashed and ride.

He found himself studying the faces of the people in the car in a new
light. Were they all acquainted with sorrow? Yes, there were more or
less lines of hardship, or anxiety, or disappointment on all the older
faces. And the younger ones! Did all their bright smiles and eagerness
have to be frozen on their lips by grief some day? When you came to
think of it life was a terrible thing! Take that girl now, Miss
Brentwood--Miss R.B. Brentwood the address had been. The name her
brother had called her fitted better, "Bonnie." What would life mean to
her now?