She liked Jim, but the need to make talk was spoiling everything. She moved along beside his creaking shoes as in a nightmare, and, as she felt every atom of her freezing to stupidity, she desperately forced her voice: "What a beautiful night it is!"

"Yes, it's great."

Missy sent him a sidelong glance. He didn't look exactly happy either.

Did he feel awkward too?

Creak! creak! creak! said the shoes.

"Listen to those shoes--never heard 'em squeak like that before," he muttered apologetically.

Missy, striving for a proper answer and finding none, kept on moving through that feeling of nightmare. What was the matter with her tongue, her brain? Was it because she didn't know Jim well enough to talk to him? Surely not, for she had met strange boys before and not felt like this. Was it because it was night? Did you always feel like this when you were all dressed up and going home from an evening party?

Creak! creak! said the shoes.

Another block lay behind them.

Missy, fighting that sensation of stupidity, in anguished resolution spoke again: "Just look at the moon--how big it is!" Jim followed her upward glance. "Yes, it's great," he agreed.

Creak! creak! said the shoes.

A heavy, regularly punctuated pause. "Don't you love moonlight nights?"

persisted Missy.

"Yes--when my shoes don't squeak." He tried to laugh.

Missy tried to laugh too. Creak! creak! said the shoes.

Another block lay behind them.

"Moonlight always makes me feel--"

She paused. What was it moonlight always made her feel? Hardly hearing what she was saying, she made herself reiterate ba.n.a.lities about the moon. Her mind flew upward to the moon--Jim's downward to his squeaking shoes. She lived at the other end of town from Raymond Bonner's house, and the long walk was made up of endless intermittent perorations on the moon, on squeaking shoes. But the song of the shoes never ceased. Louder and louder it waxed. It crashed into the innermost fibres of her frame, completely deafened her mental processes. Never would she forget it: creak-creak-creak-creak!

And the moon, usually so kind and gentle, grinned down derisively.

At last, after eons, they reached the corner of her own yard. How unchanged, how natural everything looked here! Over there, across the stretch of white moonlight, sat the summerhouse, symbol of peace and every day, cloaked in its fragrant ramblers.

Ramblers! A sudden remembrance darted through Missy's perturbed brain.

Her poor flowers--were they still out there? She must carry them into the house with her! On the impulse, without pausing to reflect that her action might look queer, she exclaimed: "Wait a minute!" and ran fleetly across the moonlit yard. In a second she had the bouquet out of the pitcher and was back again beside him, breathless.

"I left them out there," she said. "I--I forgot them. And I didn't want to leave them out there all night."

Jim bent down and sniffed at the roses. "They smell awfully sweet, don't they?" he said.

Suddenly, without premeditation, Missy extended them to him. "You may have them," she offered.

"I?" He received them awkwardly. "That's awfully sweet of you. Say, you are sweet, aren't you?"

"You may have them if you want them," she repeated.

Jim, still holding the bunch awkwardly, had an inspiration.

"I do want them. And now, if they're really mine, I want to do with them what I'd like most to do with them. May I?"

"Why, of course."

"I'd like to give them to the girl who ought to have flowers more than any girl I know. I'd like to give them to you!"

He smiled at her daringly.

"Oh!" breathed Missy. How poetical he was!

"But," he stipulated, "on one condition. I demand one rose for myself.

And you must put it in my b.u.t.tonhole for me."

With trembling fingers Missy fixed the rose in place.

They walked on up to the gate. Jim said: "In our school town the girls are all crazy for bra.s.s b.u.t.tons. They make hatpins and things. If you'd like a b.u.t.ton, I'd like to give you one--off my sleeve."

"Wouldn't it spoil your sleeve?" she asked tremulously.

"Oh, I can get more"--somewhat airily. "Of course we have to do extra guard mount and things for punishment. But that's part of the game, and no fellow minds if he's giving b.u.t.tons to somebody he likes."

Missy wasn't exactly sure she knew what "subtle" meant, but she felt that Jim was being subtle. Oh, the romance of it! To give her a bra.s.s b.u.t.ton he was willing to suffer punishment. He was like a knight of old!

As Jim was severing the b.u.t.ton with his penknife, Missy, chancing to glance upward, noted that the curtain of an upstairs window was being held back by an invisible hand. That was her mother's window.

"I must go in now," she said hurriedly. "Mother's waiting up for me."

"Well I guess I'll see you soon. You're up at Kitty's a lot, aren't you?"

"Yes," she murmured, one eye on the upstairs window. So many things she had to say now. A little while ago she hadn't been able to talk. Now, for no apparent reason, there was much to say, yet no time to say it.

How queer Life was!

"To-morrow, I expect," she hurried on. "Good night, Mr. Henley." "Good night--Missy." With his daring, gleaming smile.

Inside the hall door, mother, wrapper-clad, met her disapprovingly.

"Missy, where in the world did you get all those flowers?"

"Ji--Kitty's cousin gave them to me."

"For the land's sake!" It required a moment for mother to find further words. Then she continued accusingly: "I thought you were to come home with Mrs. Allen and Kitty."

"Kitty got sick, and her mother had to take her home."

"Why didn't you come with them?"

"Oh, mother! I was having such a good time!" For the minute Missy had forgotten there had been a shred of anything but "good time" in the whole glorious evening. "And Mrs. Allen said I might stay and come home with Jim and--"