ne bureau for the three of us, and you can guess what a mess
that is. And the closet's about as big as a pocket handkerchief."

"Ain't you got any folks?"

The blue eyes held a sudden mist.

"Nobody but Miss Tolman, and she's only a distant cousin. Ma died two
years ago. She used to sew, but she wasn't strong, and we never could
get ahead."

"My folks are all gone, too."

How little and alone she was, but how much nearer to him her aloneness
brought her. He wanted to put his hand over hers and tell her that he
would take care of her, that she need never be alone again. But the
beginning of the film choked back the words. He poked the box of
caramels at her, and she took it, opened it with a murmured "Oh, my,
thank you!" Presently they both had sweetly bulging cheeks. Where
their elbows touched on the narrow chair arm made tingling thrills run
all over him. Once she gave him an unconscious nudge of excitement.

Out of the corner of his eye he studied her delicate side face as she
sat, with her lips parted, intent on the film.

"She's pretty--and she's good," thought Wesley Dean. "I expect she's
too good for me."

But that unwontedly humble thought did not alter it a hair's breadth
that she must be his. The Deans had their way always. The veins in his
wrists and the vein in his forehead beat with his hot purpose. He
shifted so that his arm did not touch hers, for he found the nearness
of her disturbing; he could not plan or think clearly while she was so
close. And he must think clearly.

When the last flicker of the feature was over and the comic and the
news had wrung their last laugh and gasp of interest from the crowd,
they joined the slow exit of the audience in silence. On the sidewalk,
however, she found her voice.

"It was an awful nice picture," she said softly. "'Most the nicest I
ever saw."

"Look here, let's go somewhere and have a hot choc'late, or some soda,
or ice cream," he broke in hurriedly. He could not let her go with so
much yet unsaid. "Or would you like an oyster stew in a reg'lar
restaurant? Yes, that'd be better. Come on; it isn't late."

"Well, after all those caramels, I shouldn't think an oyster stew----"

"You can have something else, then." The main thing was to get her at
a table opposite him, where they wouldn't have to hurry away. "Let's
go in there."

He pointed toward a small restaurant across the street where red
candlelights glimmered warmly through panelled lace.