him from this smiling certainty of happiness. "But if I don't? If I go to New York? Mother has written me that she wants me to spend the winter in New York, studying."
"Well, I'll go too." He laughed confidently.
"To New York? What will you do there?"
He did not know. He would find something. If she went abroad—to Germany—he would wait for her to come back. "It's all right," he said. "Don't worry. I know. I can wait."
She leaned back against her tree again, gazing out over the river at the far shore, as if it were the uncertain future in which he put such trust. When he looked at her, he saw the troubled wrinkle of her forehead, and he said: "Don't—don't think of it that way. Go wherever you like. I can wait. I'll be busy preparing for you—until you come back."
She said, in a shaken voice: "We're so young. It'll be years before we can be together, really. If I meet someone else . . . and don't . . . come back."
"You always have. You always will. If you don't, I'll know it's because he is—better. It will always be the same—with me—now, whether you come or not. I'll always think of you the same."
She could not speak, except through the pressure of her fingers. He answered it with the trust of his eyes. "You'll not worry about it?"
She shook her head, blinded. "I'll try," she promised chokingly. "I'll try to come back—always—for always."
He held her hand against his cheek. "Thanks," he whispered, in a speechless gratitude.
