"
As Carter glided away from the Biggest Store with his mother in his
electric runabout, he bit his lip with a dull pain at his heart.
He knew that love had come to him for the first time in all the
twenty-nine years of his life. And that the object of it should make
so readily an appointment with him at a street corner, though it was
a step toward his desires, tortured him with misgivings.
Carter did not know the shopgirl. He did not know that her home is
often either a scarcely habitable tiny room or a domicile filled to
overflowing with kith and kin. The street-corner is her parlor, the
park is her drawing-room; the avenue is her garden walk; yet for the
most part she is as inviolate mistress of herself in them as is my
lady inside her tapestried chamber.
One evening at dusk, two weeks after their first meeting, Carter and
Masie strolled arm-in-arm into a little, dimly-lit park. They found a
bench, tree-shadowed and secluded, and sat there.
For the first time his arm stole gently around her. Her golden-bronze
head slid restfully against his shoulder.
"Gee!" sighed Masie, thankfully. "Why didn't you ever think of that
before?"
"Masie," said Carter, earnestly, "you surely know that I love you. I
ask you sincerely to marry me. You know me well enough by this time
to have no doubts of me. I want you, and I must have you. I care
nothing for the difference in our stations."
"What is the difference?" asked Masie, curiously.
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