branch-offices in Europe." The chance of a stop-gap job in St. Louis for
Nancy, where she could be with her family for a while--she really ought
to be with them a couple of months at least, if she and Oliver were to be
married so soon. The hopeful parting in the Grand Central--"But, Nancy,
you're sure you wouldn't mind going across second-class?"

"Why Ollie, dear, how silly! Why, what would it matter?" "All right, then,
and remember, I'll wire _just_ as soon as things really start to break--"

And then for eight months, nothing at all but letters and letters, except
two times, once in New York, once in St. Louis, when both had spent painful
savings because they simply had to see each other again, since even the
best letters were only doll-house food you could look at and wish you could
eat--and both had tried so hard to make each disappearing minute perfect
before they had to catch trains again that the effort left them tired as
jugglers who have been balancing too many plates and edgy at each other for
no cause in the world except the unfairness that they could only have each
other now for so short a time. And the people, the vast unescapable horde
of the dull-but-nice or the merely dull who saw in their meetings nothing
either particularly spectacular or pitiful or worth applause.

And always after the parting, a little crippled doubt tapping its crutches
along the alleys of either mind. "Do I _really?_ Because if I do, how can I
be so tired sometimes with her, with him? And why can't I say more and do
more and be more when he, when she? And everybody says. And they're older
than we are--mightn't it be true? And--" And then, remorsefully, the next
day, all doubt burnt out by the clear hurt of absence. "Oh how could I!
When it is real--when it is like that--when it is the only thing worth
while in the world!"