play, at which she cried and laughed
whole-heartedly and held his hand all through. Her first real tea was
with him--in Panama one spoke of "ladies' afternoon tea," not of "tea."
She was awed by his new walking-stick and the new knowledge of cinnamon
toast which he displayed for her. She admired, too, the bored way he
swung his stick as they sauntered into and out of the lobbies of the
great hotels.

The first flowers from a real florist's which she had ever received,
except for a bunch of carnations from Henry Carson at Panama high-school
commencement, came from Walter--long-stemmed roses in damp paper and a
florist's box, with Walter's card inside.

And perhaps the first time that she had ever really seen spring, felt
the intense light of sky and cloud and fresh greenery as her own, was on
a Sunday just before the fragrant first of June, when Walter and she
slipped away from her mother and walked in Central Park, shabby but
unconscious.

She explored with him, too; felt adventurous in quite respectable
Japanese and Greek and Syrian restaurants.

But her mother waited for her at home, and the job, the office, the
desk, demanded all her energy.

Had they seen each other less frequently, perhaps Walter would have let
dreams serve for real kisses, and have been satisfied. But he saw her a
hundred times a day--and yet their love progressed so little. The
propinquity of the office tantalized them. And Mrs. Golden kept them
apart.

Sec. 2

The woman who had aspired and been idle while Captain Golden had toiled
for her, who had mourned and been idle while Una had planned for her,
and who had always been a compound of selfishness and love, was more and
more accustomed to taking her daughter's youth to feed her comfort and
her canary--a bird of atrophied voice and uncleanly habit.

If this were the history of the people who wait at home, instead of the
history of the warriors, rich credit would be given to Mrs. Golden for
enduring the long, lonely days, listening for Una's step. A proud,
patient woman with nothing to do all day but pick at a little housework,
and read her eyes out, and wish that she could run in and be neighborly
with the indifferent urbanites who formed about her a wall of ice. Yet
so confused are human purposes that this good woman who adored her
daughter also sapped her daughter's vigor. As the office loomed behind
all of Una's desires, so behind the office, in turn, was ever the
shadowy though