They had not told him--at first he could not speak. Dumbly he sat, his
face bowed upon that brown head pillowed in his arms. She had told
herself that she was a woman now--yet her first words were all girl.
"Tell me just once that I'm pretty," she quavered. "Say that I am
still--half boy--to you!"
His tongue unsteadied with joy, he told her again, as he had told her
on that other day; and watching the old, old wonder of her grow in his
eyes, she listened as though she were taking the words, one by one,
from his lips. But there was nothing boyish in the crooked little arch
of her mouth--nothing boyish in the depths of her dark and brimming
eyes. She remembered his wincing shoulder then; her arms crept higher
about his neck. And now her face was uplifted and there was no more
need for words.
Afterward, when they spoke of Big Louie, she loved him more for the
sorrow which he did not try to hide. From Fat Joe he had already
learned of Big Louie's last dereliction. Out of a deeper silence,
Steve spoke gravely--an epitaph for the man to whom he had been
unfailingly kind.
"Most any kind of a failure can live," he said, "but it takes a man--to
smile and die."
He let himself marvel aloud at her littleness.
Their first hour together was only the happier for that moment of
sadness they shared.
CHAPTER XXV
IN REAL LIFE TOO
There was no longer any objection raised by Miss Sarah; and Barbara
spent every hour of her days with him.
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