Of that performance I shall say nothing.  It is now famous and familiar to thousands of theater-goers.  But if ever mortal man spent twenty minutes in fairyland, it was David, while Mary was playing the work of his fancy.  At the close, he disappeared.  I suppose he did not dare trust himself to join in the congratulations with which she was overwhelmed.  I found him, as I rather expected, on the bench where he had sat when Mayme McCartney first found him.  And when the crowd had departed from the studio, I told the girl.  Without even stopping to put on her hat she went out to him.

He was sitting with his elbows on his knees and his fists supporting his cheekbones.  But this time he was not weeping.  He was thinking.  Just as of old she put a hand on his humped shoulder.  Startled, he looked up, and jumped to his feet.  She was holding something out to him.

“What’s that?” he said.

“A check.  For what I owe you.”

“Who told you?  The Little Red Doctor promised—­”

“He’s kept his promise.  The Dominie told me.”

“Oh!  I suppose,” he said slowly, “I’ve got to take this.  You wouldn’t—­no, of course you wouldn’t,” he sighed.

“I’ve tried to keep strict account,” she said.

David adopted a matter-of-fact tone.  “I can’t deny that it’ll come in handy, just now,” he remarked.  “At the present price of clothing, and with my personal exchequer in its depleted state—­”

“Why,” she broke in, “has anything happened?  Your mother—?”

“Cut off,” said David briefly.

“She’s cut you off?  On my account?  Oh—­”

“No.  I’ve cut her off.  Temporarily.  She doesn’t want me to work.  I’m working.  On a newspaper.”

“That’s good,” said the girl warmly.  “Let’s sit down.”

They sat down.  Each, however, found it curiously hard to begin again.  Mary was aching to thank him, but had a dreadful fear that if she tried to, she would cry.  She didn’t want to cry.  She had a feeling that crying would be a highly unstrategic procedure leading to possible alarming developments.  Why didn’t David say something?  Finally he did make a beginning.

“Mayme.”

“No:  not ‘Mayme’ any more.”

He flushed to his temples.  “I beg your pardon, Miss Courtenay.”

“Nonsense!” she said softly.  “Mary.  I’ve discarded the ‘Mayme’ long ago.”

“Mary,” he repeated in a tone of musing content.

“Buddy.”

He caught his breath.  “A few thousand of the best guys in the world,” he said, “call a fellow that.  And every time they said it, it made my heart ache with longing to hear it in your voice.”

“You’re a queer Buddy,” returned the girl, not quite steadily.  “Did you bring me home a German helmet for a souvenir?”

He shook his head.  “I didn’t bring home much of anything, except some experience and the discovery of the fact that when I had to stand on my own feet, I wasn’t much.”