"Why, David, darling!" she sobbed and laughed, "I've never before in all my life had any silk underwear or a pair of silk stockings! I--I'm afraid to wear them for fear I'll spoil them when I have to wash them. Oh, the dear things! The lovely, precious things!"
"And here's something else," David said to her that Saturday morning.
They were in the still-deserted Palace of Wonders, their purchases spread out on Sally's platform.
"Give me your hand and shut your eyes," David commanded gently, with a throb of excitement in his voice.
She obeyed, but when she felt a ring being slipped upon the third finger of her left hand her eyes flew open and found a sapphire to match them. For the ring that David had bought for her was a plain loop of white gold, with a deep-blue sapphire in an old-fashioned Tiffany mounting, such as tradition has made sacred to engagement rings.
"Oh, David!" She laid her hand against her cheek, pressing the stone so hard that it left its many-faceted imprint upon her flesh. Then she had to kiss it and David had to kiss it--and her.
"I wish it could have been a diamond," David deprecated. "I suppose all girls prefer diamond engagement rings. But--"
"Oh, David, is it an engagement ring?" she breathed, then flung herself upon his breast, her hands clinging to his shoulders.
"Of course it is, precious idiot!" he laughed. Very gently but insistently he forced her face upward, so that their eyes met and clung. His were boyishly ardent but solemn, hers were misted over with tears, but brighter and bluer than the stone upon her finger. "I don't know when we can be married, Sally, but--I wanted you to have a ring and to know that I'll always be thinking and planning and--oh, I can't talk! You want to be engaged, don't you, Sally? You love me--enough?"
"I adore you. I love you so that I feel I am not even half a person when you're not with me. I couldn't live without you, David," she said solemnly.
They were still sitting there, talking, planning, making love shyly but ardently, when Gus, the barker, mounted the box outside the tent and began to ballyhoo for the first show of the morning.
"Eleven o'clock and I'm not in make-up yet, and you've got to run the wheel for Eddie today," Sally cried in dismay, jumping to her feet and gathering up her scattered purchases and presents.