"So I have," he said, and then in a voice of protest, "Oh, Mademoiselle!"
For Betty had already darted back and now returned dangling the gloves in her hand.
"Mademoiselle, how shall I thank you?" he asked as he took them from her. Then he cocked his head at Frobisher, who was looking a little stiff.
"Ha! ha! my young friend," he said with a grin. "You do not like that so much kindness should be shown me. No! You are looking very proper. You have the poker in the back. But ask yourself this: 'What are youth and good looks compared with Hanaud?'"
No, Jim Frobisher did not like Hanaud at all when the urchin got the upper hand in him. And the worst of it was that he had no rejoinder. He flushed very red, but he really had no rejoinder. They walked in silence to the house, and Hanaud, picking up his hat and stick, took his leave by the courtyard and the big gates. Ann drifted into the library. Jim felt a touch upon his arm. Betty was standing beside him with a smile of amusement upon her face.
"You didn't really mind my going back for his gloves, did you?" she asked. "Say you didn't, Jim!" and the amusement softened into tenderness. "I wouldn't have done it for worlds if I had thought you'd have minded."
Jim's ill-humour vanished like mist on a summer morning.
"Mind?" he cried. "You shall pin a rose in his button-hole if it pleases you, and all I'll say will be, 'You might do the same for me'!"
Betty laughed and gave his arm a friendly squeeze.
"We are friends again, then," she said, and the next moment she was out on the steps under the glass face of the porch. "Lunch at two, Ann!" she cried. "I must walk all the grime of this morning out of my brain."