May Iverson's Career Part 28

Our love, dear May, and our prayers for your success.

SISTER IRMINGARDE.

I handed the message to Maudie and Kittie, who were with me. They had both been crying; their eyes moistened again.

"Who would have thought all this could happen, when we were school-girls at St. Catharine's!" whispered Maudie. "Do you remember your first play, May--the one we girls put on?" I remembered. I could laugh at that tragedy now.

I heard G.o.dfrey's voice speaking with a sudden masterfulness.

"If you don't mind," he was saying to my father, "I'll send you home in my car and take May for a little spin in the Park in a taxi-cab. I think she needs half an hour of quiet and fresh air."

My father smiled at him.

"I think she does," he agreed.

There were more congratulations, more hand-shaking, before I could get away. Then I found myself with G.o.dfrey in a taxi-cab which was making its purring way up Fifth Avenue. It was strangely restful to be alone with him after the strain and excitement of the past three hours. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the cushions, my mind at first a whirling kaleidoscope in which the scenes of the evening repeated themselves over and over. Then, in the darkness and the silence, they began to disappear. Suddenly there seemed nothing in the world but G.o.dfrey and me. He had leaned forward and taken my hand. We had entered the Park and were slipping along an avenue of awake and watchful trees.

"Well, May," he said, gently.

My heart slipped a beat. There was a new quality in the voice which throbbed and shook a little. "I've waited almost five years," he went on. "Isn't that long enough? Won't you come to me now?"

He held out his arms in the dark cab, and I entered them. From their wonderful shelter I heard his next words.

"Marrying me," he said, "won't mean that you're giving up anything you have. You are only adding me to it. I shall be as much interested in your books and your plays as you are yourself. You know that, don't you?"

But I interrupted him. In that moment books and plays seemed like the snows of yesteryear.

"G.o.dfrey," I said, "do you imagine that I'm thinking of books and plays now? Let's talk about the real things."

The taxi-cab sang on its way. The trees that lined the broad drive of the Park raced beside us, keeping us company. Far above them a tiny new moon smiled down. My professional life, like the lights of the Avenue, lay behind me. Little in it seemed to count in the new world I was entering. Until to-night I had been merely a player waiting in the wings. Now, out in front, I heard the orchestra playing. The curtain of life was going up, and I had my cue in G.o.dfrey's voice.

THE END