.
Sewall--or Breck, but it wasn't.

"Is that you, Ruth?"

Bob! It was Bob calling me! Bob's dear voice!

"Yes," I managed to reply. "Yes, Bob. Yes, it's I."

"May I see you?"

"Yes, you may see me."

"When? May I see you now?"

"Why, yes. You may see me _now_."

"All right. I'm at the Grand Central. Just in. I called your other
number and they gave me this. I don't know where it is. Will you tell
me?"

I could feel the foot that my weight wasn't on trembling. "Yes, I'll
tell you," I said, "but I'd rather meet _you_--some nicer place.
Couldn't I meet you?"

"Yes--if you'd rather. Can you come _now_?"

"Yes, now, Bob, this very minute."

"All right, then." He named a hotel. "The tea-room in half an hour.
Good-by."

"Good-by," I managed to finish; and I was glad when I hung up the
receiver that Esther wasn't there.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE OPEN DOOR

No one would have guessed who saw a girl in a dark-blue, tailored suit
enter the tea-room that evening about seven o'clock, and greet a man,
with a brief and ordinary hand-shake, that there was a tremor of knees
and hammering of heart underneath her quiet colors; and that the touch
of the man's bare hand, even through her glove, sent something
zigzagging down through her whole being, like a streak of lightning
through a cloud. All she said was: "Hello, Bob. I've come, you see." And
he quietly, "Yes, I see. You've come."

He dropped her hand. They looked straight into each other's eyes an
instant.

"Anything the matter with anybody at home?" she questioned.

"Oh, no, nothing," he assured her. "Everybody's all right. Are you all
right, Ruth?"

"Yes," she smiled. (How good it was to see him. His kind, kind eyes! He
looked tired--a little. She remembered that suit. It was new last
Spring. What dear, intimate knowledge she still possessed of him.)
"Yes," she smiled, "I'm all right."

"Had dinner?" he questioned.

"No, not a bite." She shook her head. (How glowing and fresh he was,
even in spite of the tired look. She knew very well what he had done
with the half-hour before he met her; he had made himself beautiful for
her eyes. How well acquainted she was with all the precious, homely
signs, how completely he had been hers once. There was the fountain-pen,
with its peculiar patent clasp, in its usual place in his waistcoat
pocket. In that same pocket was a pencil, nicely sharpened, and a small
note-book with red leather covers. She knew! She had