When they had said goodbye and started down the stairs, Annabel and Ralph and Clinton looked at one another and shared, at that moment, the same mindless, wordless sense of wonder. But no one of these three persons knew how often, in the future, this moment would be dredged up in memory, to be looked at and savored, and endlessly pondered.

Ralph soon fell asleep, and Annabel declared herself ready to retire as well. She gave Clinton a good-night kiss and went into the bathroom for her nightly preparations of cold cream and hairpins.

Clinton went to his own room. He thumbed through his notebook and picked up his fountain pen. But he found that he had no desire to record all of the small happenings of the day: Echo’s arrival, and the evidence, so trifling as to be almost imaginary, that he had found to support his own fears in her behalf. When a day had been as nearly perfect as this one, it seemed to him that any impulse to dwell on its defects should be thwarted as unwholesome, even wicked. Perhaps, in a few minutes, when Annabel was in bed, he would take his notebook downstairs to her desk, and catch up on the week’s mail. But as he lay back on his pillow, to wait for her to finish in the bathroom, his eyes closed, and soon he was fast asleep.

Some sound in the night brought him suddenly to full wakefulness. He wondered how long he had slept. His light had been turned off and there was a bathrobe covering his legs; Annabel must have placed it there. In a moment he heard footsteps on the stairs and the whispering of Echo and Berry-berry. He turned his lamp on, in hopes that one of them, or both, would see the light under his door and come in to visit with him. Then he heard the gentle opening and closing of doors, and the tiptoeing sounds of journeys to the bathroom. In a few minutes there was silence; and then he heard a gentle rapping on the door of his own room.

“Come on in,” he whispered.

The door opened. Berry-berry, still dressed, put his head in and looked around. “Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Echo. I saw your light and thought maybe she came in to say good night.”

“Huh-uh. But come on in.”

“She’s not in her room either,” Berry-berry said.

“Maybe she’s getting something to eat. Where’d you go, to Wood’s Inn?”

“Yeah, and the Shamrock. You know; all over.”

“What time is it?”

“About two. I’m not drunk either.”

“Is she a good dancer?”

“Oh, yeah, she’s a good dancer.” Berry-berry seemed unable to stand still. He walked from one end of the room to the other. Then he sat on the bed, and instantly arose. “I wonder where she is though.”

“Eating something?”

“No. ‘Cause we had a hamburger. I think I’ll go see.”

“You had a good time though, huh?”