Her brow clouded. "But you said girls oughtn't to take things from men they weren't engaged to. You remember that day on deck you got me to give back Andy's scarf-pin?"
Percival cleared his throat.
"Quite a different matter," he said; "now, between you and me—"
Bobby shook her head as she took off the coat.
"No, I guess not. I want it so bad I can taste it, but I think you'd better keep it for somebody in the family."
Percival slipped the jade pendant into his waistcoat pocket, and tossed the coat on a chair.
"As you like," he said. "Shall we go to the ball-room?"
In his secret soul he was inordinately gratified. Of course she should not have accepted the coat, and he should not have tempted her. She had done exactly right in firmly adhering to his former instructions. Altogether she was a remarkable little person indeed.
The moment they appeared in the ballroom she was confiscated, and he had a miserable quarter of an hour watching her whirl from one masculine arm to another. For the first time dancing struck him as pernicious. He declared that the clergy had something on its side when it denounced the amusement as evil. He doubted gravely if he should ever permit a wife of his to dance.
"Mr. Hascombe, aren't you going to ask me to dance?" It was Bobby who had stopped before him, flushed and breathless.