One Coin in the Fountain

by Anita Charles

  “Oh, Rose!” he breathed, and held her passionately close again.

  She drew herself gently away from him. Then she remembered something.

  “Do you know, Lance,” she said, “I threw a coin into the fountain—the Fontana de Trevi— and it brought me back to Rome!” Her eyes were shining suddenly. “I also made a wish. Shall I tell you what that wish was! Part of it came true when I suddenly saw you again in Rome, and the other part—”

  “Yes?” he whispered tenderly, taking her back into his arms while she made her confession. “What was the other part of your wish, sweetheart?” “Can’t you possibly guess?” she inquired, looking up at him.

  “I’d rather you told me.”

  “Then”, she smiled into his eyes, gently stroked his face—“it was that you would find happiness again, Lance, my beloved! I couldn’t bear it when I knew you were unhappy!”

  “And if I’d found happiness with someone else?” he asked very slowly.

  “Then I wouldn’t really have minded—at least I would, of course, have minded terribly, but—more than anything else I wanted you to be happy!”

  And all he could say then, as he buried his face in her hair, was, rather helplessly:

  “Oh, Rose!”

  THE END