"
Mabel, inviting further confidences, ceased rocking and nodded
encouragingly. "Up in Geneva?" she prompted.
"Yes," said Vera, "I used to see him every afternoon then, when
he played ball on the college nine -- "
"Who?" demanded Mannie incredulously.
"Winthrop," said Vera.
"Did he?" exclaimed Mannie. His tone suggested that he might
still be persuaded that there was good in the man.
"What'd he play?" he demanded suspiciously.
"First," said Vera.
"Did he!" exclaimed Mannie. His tone now was of open
approbation.
Vera had raised her eyes and turned them toward the windows.
Beyond the soot- stained sumach tree, the fire escapes of the
department store, she saw the sun- drenched campus, the
buttressed chapel, the ancient, drooping elms; and on a canvas
bag, poised like a winged Mercury, a tall straight figure in
gray, dusty flannels.
"He was awfully good-looking," murmured the girl, "and awfully
tall. He could stop a ball as high as -- that!" She raised her
arm in the air, and then, suddenly conscious, flushed, and
turned to the piano.
"Go on, tell us," urged Mabel. "So you first met him in Geneva,
did you?"
"No," corrected Vera, "saw him there. I -- only met him once."
Mannie interrupted hilariously.
"I only saw him once, too," he cried, "that was enough for me."
Vera swiftly spun the piano stool so that she faced him. Her
eyes were filled with concern.
"You, Mannie!" she demanded anxiously.
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