Life was singing for his
supper on the corner! Life was handing round cocktails in the street! Old
women there were in that crowd who felt that they could have run and won
a hundred-yard dash!
In bed that night with the lights out and the cool room swimming with
moonlight, Anthony lay awake and played with every minute of the day
like a child playing in turn with each one of a pile of long-wanted
Christmas toys. He had told her gently, almost in the middle of a kiss,
that he loved her, and she had smiled and held him closer and murmured,
"I'm glad," looking into his eyes. There had been a new quality in her
attitude, a new growth of sheer physical attraction toward him and a
strange emotional tenseness, that was enough to make him clinch his
hands and draw in his breath at the recollection. He had felt nearer to
her than ever before. In a rare delight he cried aloud to the room that
he loved her.
He phoned next morning--no hesitation now, no uncertainty--instead a
delirious excitement that doubled and trebled when he heard her voice:
"Good morning--Gloria."
"Good morning."
"That's all I called you up to say-dear."
"I'm glad you did.
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