She had sent him this girl ... too late! The
letter in the envelope was written to tell Janet Spencer that within
six weeks he would be in Tawnleytown to claim her in marriage.
One must be single-minded like Harber to appreciate his terrible
distress of mind. The facile infidelity of your ordinary mortal
wasn't for Harber. No, he had sterner stuff in him.
Vanessa! The name seemed so beautiful ... like the girl herself,
like the things she had said. It was an Italian name. She had told
him her people had come from Venice, though she was herself
thoroughly a product of America. "So that you can never forget," she
had said. Ah, it was the warm blood of Italy in her veins that had
prompted that An American girl wouldn't have said that!
He slit the envelope, letting the letter fall to the table, and put
it in his pocket.
Yet why should he save it? He could never see her again, he knew.
Vain had been those half-promises, those wholly lies, that his eyes
and lips had given her. For there was Janet, with her prior promises.
Ten years Janet had waited for him ... ten years ... and suddenly,
aghast, he realized how long and how terrible the years are, how they
can efface memories and hopes and desires, and how cruelly they had
dealt with him, though he had not realized it until this moment.
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