Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/125

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THE DAY-DREAMER
113

bent over him, laughing at his clumsiness because his fingers were cold. And above all, there was the afternoon when she made the excuse to her mother, that she had to do some shopping down town; and they made their way to the business district along the squalid "back" streets of "The Ward," where the sidewalks were so slippery that on their return, in the gathering darkness, she had to take his arm, twittering gaily, and swinging a long stride to keep step with him, unconscious of the fact that the touch of her hand was burning him through his sleeve.

She no longer had any coquettish timidity in her manner towards him, and he was careful to say nothing that might frighten her into thinking seriously of their relations. The issue of his only declaration of love was still a warning in his mind. He did not speak of the future in which he had included her. When she asked him whether he had decided what study he was going to pursue, in the place of law, he replied easily: "Oh yes. I'm taking a general course—a 'pass' course, they call it. I can get my degree in that, you know."

"And then what will you do?"

"What Emerson says," he laughed.

"What is that?"

"'Make yourself necessary to the world and the world will give you bread.'"

She looked at him thoughtfully, struck by the hopeful impracticality of his trust in the advice of books.

"You should read Emerson," he said. "He's great."

The unworldly philosophy of the mild New