It was as if these young exiles had brought from their
southern homes something of leisure, something of spaciousness and
pure sweetness that the more sophisticated youth of the city
lacked. Their very speech, softly slurred and lazy, held a charm
for Bert, used to his mother's and his aunts' crisp consonants. He
called Nancy "my little southern girl" in his heart, from the hour
he met her, and long afterward he told her that he had loved her
all that time.
He could not free the cramped muscles of his spirit to meet her
quite on her own ground; it was his fate sometimes to reach the
laugh just as all the others grew suddenly serious, and as often
he took their airy interest heavily, and chained them with facts,
from which they fluttered like a flight of butterflies. But he had
his own claim, and it warmed the very fibres of his lonely heart
when he saw that Nancy was beginning to recognize that claim.
When they all went out to the theatre and supper, it was his
pocket-book that never failed them. And what a night that was
when, eagerly proffering the fresh bills to Lee Porter, who was
giving the party, he looked up to catch a look of protest, and
shame, and gratitude, in Nancy's lovely eyes!
"No, now, Lee, you shall not take it!" she laughed richly.
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