"

Then Oliver jangles the little hook of the telephone frantically up and
down.

"Mother! Listen! Listen! Who is it? Is it--honestly?"

But Mrs. Crowe has hung up. Shall he get the connection again? But that
means waiting--and Mother said he would just be able to make it--and
Mother isn't at all the kind that would fool him over a thing like this
no matter how much she wanted to tease. Oliver bounds back toward the
dining-room and nearly runs into Elinor Piper. He grabs her by the
shoulders.

"Listen, El!" he says feverishly. "Oh, I'll congratulate you properly
and all that some time but this is utterly everything--I've got to
go home right away--this minute--toot sweet--and no, by gum, I won't
apologize _this_ time for asking you to get somebody to take me over in
a car!"

XLVIII

She was sitting on the porch of the house--a small figure in the close
blue hat he knew, a figure that seemed as if it had come tired from a
long journey. She had been talking with his mother, but as soon as the
car drew up, Mrs. Crowe rose quickly and went into the house.

Then they were together again.

The instant paid them for all. For the last weeks' bitterness and the
human doubt, the human misunderstandings that had made it. And even as
it opened before them a path some corners and resting-places of which
seemed almost too proud with living for them to dare to be alive on
it--both knew that that fidelity which is intense and of the soul had
ended between them forever an emptier arrogance that both had once
delighted in like bright colors--a brittle pride that lives only by the
falser things in being young.

They had thought they were sure of each other in their first weeks
together--they had said many words about it and some of them clever
enough. But their surety now had no need of any words at all--it had
been too well tempered by desolation to find any obligation for speech
or the calling of itself secure.

They kissed--not as a pleasant gesture, and no fear of looking publicly
ridiculous stopped them.

The screen door behind Nancy pushed open. Jane Ellen appeared, Jane
Ellen, by the look of her, intent upon secret and doubtful business, a
large moth-eaten bear dangling by its leg from one of her plump hands.
She was too concerned with getting her charge through the door to notice
what was happening at first but as soon as she was fairly out on the
porch she looked about her. The bear dropped from her fingers--