For the one thing that the young artist had sworn to himself should never happen to HIM,--at any rate not until he was old and successful,--the very thing that Milly had laughed at as preposterous--"me fall in love with a poor man!"--had come to pass. Both had done it.
"I shan't spoil all your future for you, shall I, dear?" she whispered, her mouth close to his. He gave her the only proper answer....
"It shan't make any difference," she said later, in a calmer moment. "You shall have your life, dear, and become a great painter."
"Of course!" Youth replied robustly. "And I'll do a great picture of you!"
How wonderful! How wonderful it all was, Milly thought, as they threaded their way homewards through the slovenly, garish Chicago streets, mindful of naught but themselves and their Secret. How could anything so poetically wonderful happen in workaday Chicago? And Milly thought to herself how could any woman consider for a moment sacrificing THIS--"the real, right thing"--for any bribe on earth?...
As they neared the little house, Milly perceived the light in the front room and with an intuition of something unpleasant to follow dismissed her lover peremptorily, with a last daring kiss beneath the street-light, and tripped into the house.
It all came over her as soon as the tall figure rose from the uncomfortable corner sofa: she knew what she had done and she was filled with real concern for the Other One.
"Edgar!" she cried. "Have you been waiting long?"
"Some time," Mrs. Ridge observed with reproof.
"Since four forty-five," Duncan admitted, and added with a touch of sentiment. "I came fifteen minutes before the time."
Milly cast a fleeting glance backward over what had happened to her since four forty-five!
"But it doesn't matter now," he said with intention, "all the waiting!"
Mrs. Ridge discreetly withdrew at this point.
"I'm so glad to see you," Milly began lamely. "Do sit down."
"I've been sitting a long time," Edgar Duncan remarked, patiently reseating himself on the stiff sofa.
"Yes, I forgot all about it," Milly admitted bluntly. "You see so much has happened since--"
"Then you didn't get my letters?" he pressed on eagerly, ignoring Milly's last words.
"Oh, yes, I got all your letters," she said hastily, remembering that she had not found time or heart to open the last bulky three, which lay upstairs on her dressing-table. "Beautiful letters they were," she added sentimentally and irrelevantly, thinking, "What letters Jack will write!"