“I’ll wear shoes.”
“Oh, Will! You’re the same old Will!”
“What show would you like to see today?”
“Oh, anything. I haven’t been to one for months.”
“All right. I’ll use my own judgment. One o’clock, then, at the Biltmore.”
“Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, dear.”
Stella’s heart skipped a beat. That “dear” didn’t sound like old friends. It didn’t sound safe, and she knew she was glad he had said it.
She dressed carefully and spent a long time in front of her mirror. It told her that although she had changed a lot since twenty-four, her age when she and Will had parted, she certainly did not look thirty-nine, not within four or five years of it. Her face was unlined and her figure still good, almost youthful, she thought, despite the ten or twelve pounds she had taken on as Mrs. Crane. There was not the same sparkle in her eyes, perhaps, and her smile was less engaging, more artificial; it was a smile she had cultivated for use when one of the Fields, Coopers or Smalls had related a rough story or joke which she hadn’t understood or liked or listened to.
Of course she was not conscious of this or of the difference in her eyes. She felt she could still arouse a man’s interest, particularly the interest of a man who hinted that he had remained single because he could not have her.
Will was more than a little excited. There had been fifty girls and women in his life since Stella had gone out of it, but none who had been able to hold him, none who had seemed as desirable as his sweetheart of fifteen years ago.
He believed she had still cared a great deal for him when she married Crane, and he believed that a woman who had cared for him once never could get entirely over it. Look at Fannie Towns, and May Judson, and most of the others! All he had to do was to whistle and they would come back.
Now he was going to meet the only one he had ever really loved and wanted. She had been easily persuaded to see him, and her husband was out of town. The day would not end with the matinée.
He called up Endicott 9546. “Betty? This is Will again. Say, I’m sorry about tonight, but I just had a wire from Charlie Prince, from Buffalo. He’s getting in at seven o’clock and wants me to meet him and stick around with him all evening. No, it’s business; I can’t get out of it. I’ll call you tomorrow, and meanwhile, don’t forget me.”
He and Stella had no trouble identifying each other. Will immediately noted her plumpness, but was glad it was no worse. He observed, too, the new smile, but charged it to embarrassment. Stella saw that his hair was thin and his face bore the marks of dissipation. Otherwise, he was the same old Will.
He said they had plenty of time and she must order something special to celebrate the occasion.
“I don’t feel like eating,” said Stella. “I just want to talk and hear you talk.”
“And I just want to look at you. That’s feast enough for me.”
But the waiter was hovering, and to get rid of him they had to make a choice.
“You haven’t changed a bit,” said Will, after ordering.
“I’ve changed more than you have. I’m heavier.”
“Very little. And look at my hair, or what’s left of it.”
“I don’t think you’ve lost much—not much.”
“I’m not worrying about it, anyway,” said Will, who worried about it a great deal. “It’s too late for me to care whether I’m handsome or not.”
“I think you’re just as handsome as ever.”
“That’s all that matters.”
“But I want to hear about you, Will. Are you still with Boyer?”
“I’m back with Boyer. I quit them for a while; gave them a chance to miss me. They hired me back for fifteen thousand a year, five thousand more than my old contract.”
Fifteen thousand a year was big money in Will’s eyes; it was three thousand more than he was getting, and he didn’t relish Stella’s comment:
“That ought to be plenty for you, a bachelor with no responsibilities. If you were married and living in a place like New York—well, Ralph makes nearly thirty thousand and we aren’t able to save much. We don’t spend much either, but it goes. Food and clothes and rent—everything’s so frightfully high.”
It didn’t occur to Will that she might have overestimated Ralph’s income as he had his own, and he was not interested in the cost of New York living. He changed the subject.
“I got tickets for Journey’s End.”
“Oh, you’ll love it,” said Stella after the briefest of pauses. “Everybody’s mad about it, especially the men.”
“You haven’t seen it, have you?”
“Yes, I have, but I don’t mind a bit.”
“You told me you hadn’t seen anything.”
“I didn’t think you’d pick it out. I thought you liked musical shows. But it honestly doesn’t make any difference.”
“It does, too. I’m going to see if I can’t get something else.”
“Please, Will, don’t! For one thing, it’s late, and I swear I’d just as soon see this again. If it wasn’t so good, I’d let you change. But I wouldn’t have you miss it for the world. There’s no girl in it and it’s a war play and probably more interesting to men than women, but I don’t care.”
“I do. Let me see if I can’t get something for Follow Thru.”
“Oh, they say that’s wonderful, but I know they’d be sold out. And I really want to see Journey’s End again; I may get more out of it the second time.”
“I wish you’d told me. Maybe we can go to Follow Thru tonight.”
“Don’t let’s talk about it any more. Let’s talk about you.”
“That won’t be very interesting.”
“It will to me. I want to hear all about your business affairs and your love affairs, and everything.”
“Well,” said Will, “I’ve done pretty well in business; that is, for me. Nothing like Ralph, I suppose,
