“Give my love to the town pump.”

“Rush the old oaken growler for me.”

“So long!” she called, eager to be rid of them.  “Pick me up at six sharp.”

She walked slowly up High Street.  Passers-by turned to stare, but otherwise she was unrecognized.  There was a new five-and-ten-cent store, and Finley Brothers had added an ell.  High Street was paved.  She made a foray down into the little side street where she had spent those queerly remote first seventeen years of her life.  How dim her aunt seemed!  The little unpainted frame house was gone.  There was a lumber yard on the site.  Everything seemed to have shrunk.  The street was narrower and dirtier than she recalled it.

She made one stop, at the house of Maggie Simms, a high-school chum.  It was a frame house, too, and she remembered that the front door opened directly into the parlor and the side entrance was popularly used instead.  But a strange sister-in-law opened the side door.  Maggie was married and living in Cincinnati.  Oh, fine—­a master mechanic, and there were twins.  She started back toward Finley’s, thinking of Gerald, and halfway she changed her mind.

Maggie Simms married and living in Cincinnati.  Twins!  Heigh-ho!  What a world!  The visit was hardly a success.  At half after five she was on her way back to the court-house steps.  Stupid to have made it six!

And then, of course, and quite as you would have it, Gerald Fishback came along.  She recognized his blondness long before he saw her.  He was bigger and more tanned, and, as of old, carried his hat in his hand.  She noticed that there were no creases down the front of his trousers, but the tweed was good and he gave off that intangible aroma of well-being.

She was surprised at the old thrill racing over her.  Seeing him was like a stab of quick steel through the very pit of her being.  She reached out, touching him, before he saw her.

“Gerald,” she said, soft and teasingly.

It was actually as if he had been waiting for that touch, because before he could possibly have perceived her her name was on his lips.

“Hester!” he said, the blueness of his eyes flashing between blinks.  “Not Hester?”

“Yes, Hester,” she said, smiling up at him.

He grasped both her hands, stammering for words that wanted to come quicker than he could articulate.

“Hester!” he kept repeating.  “Hester!”

“To think you knew me, Gerald!”

“Know you!  I’d know you blindfolded.  And how—­I—­You’re beautiful, Hester!  I think you’ve grown five years younger.”

“You’ve got on, Gerald.  You look it.”

“Yes; I’m general manager now at Finley’s.”

“I’m so glad.  Married?”

“Not while there’s a Hester Bevins on earth.”

She started at her own name.

“How do you know I’m not married?”

“I—­I know—­” he said, reddening up.