trusting and believing until the perfect stranger draws close enough to rout all hopes. The disappointments and the courage that flares anew with each blighted expectation.
One dark outline a block away, slim and slight as Eddie, caused Dot's heart to pound delightedly. She framed her words; she knew just how she would greet him. "You're not late by any chance?" she would say. But it wasn't Eddie. A sickening chill passed over Dot as the outline materialized into a well-dressed unknown. He said "Hello, Cutie" to Dot as he passed.
The sickening chill persisted. There was a heavy conviction bothering her now, a conviction that Eddie would not come. Half an hour late! He had never done this before. At least thirty times they had met at this corner, and Eddie had always been prompt. It had been raining, too, on other occasions. It wasn't the weather that delayed him. Dot bit her lower lip till it was sore and bleeding. Oh, where was Eddie? There was positive agony in die glance that she directed unwaveringly eastward. Another figure. This one might be Eddie, she assured herself. As the man, one she had never before seen, walked under a bright light, Dot suffered no disappointment. She was conscious of the fact that she had really known from the start it was not Eddie. Stupid, to try to fool herself.
Well, she would wait no longer. He wasn't coming. She knew what she had to do. She had to go to his house and find out what had kept him. She couldn't go home and sleep without knowing. Perhaps he was sick—Dot hastily snipped her thoughts off there. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, that's what she was going to do. How did a guy get that way? Letting her stand out in the rain like a sap. She wouldn't do that for the Pope. Where did he get that stuff, anyhow?
She knew his house though she had never before been
