go to Messina in the interests of his cartridge company (this was a
polite fiction) and that he might have to be gone a long time.
Business was a hard master. He had always tried to keep it out of his
home life, but in times like these a man must be ready to catch at
straws.

And Lucy, just her head and fingers showing from the great coon-skin
coat, would give him a look that I should not now interpret as I did
then. I thought that it made her feel sick at heart even to think of
his going to some far-off place without her!

"Speaking of far-off places," I said once, "Gerald Colebridge is taking
some men to Burlingham to play polo. He's asked me, and I'm tempted
almost beyond my strength. What does everybody think?"

"I'd go like a shot," said Dawson Cooper. "Gerald will take his car
and everything will be beautifully done; and California just about
now!" Here he bunched his fingers, kissed them and sent the kiss
heavenward.

"Wish _I_ was asked!" exclaimed Evelyn.

"Ever been to California?" Fulton asked. "Because if not, go. And
still I've thought sometimes that spring in Aiken is almost as lovely."

Poor fellow, it must have been quite obvious that he didn't think so
any more. But then Evelyn, Dawson, and I were blind and deaf, at this
time.

"When," said Lucy at last, "would you go, if you go?"

"Why, in a day or two," I said. "I'd probably leave day after tomorrow
on the three o'clock and join the party in New York."

"Oh, dear," she said, "I'll have to take up golf then. You're the only
man in Aiken who likes to ride. And John won't let me ride alone."

"Why not," said he, "ask me to ride with you?"

"Oh, I know you'd do it," she said. "You're a hero, but I'm not quite
such a brute."

I wish I could have gone to California.

I rode with Lucy the next afternoon, for the last time as we both
thought. As we came home through Lover's Lane, the ponies walking very
slowly, she leaned toward me a little, turned the great praying eyes
upon me, and said, her mouth smiling falteringly:

"Please don't go away. I hate it. Everything's gone all wrong with
the world. And if you're not my friend that I can talk to and tell
things to, I haven't one."

"Are you serious, Lucy?"

"Oh, it's no matter!" she said lightly, and began to gather her reins,
preparatory to a gallop.

"It's only that it didn't seem possible that you could need one
particular friend out of so many. Of course, I stay. W