He tried to draw back.
"Do!" she pleaded. "I've been—been depending on you. I'd feel more confident if you were along with me. We have a lower box, and there'll be just the four of us. Do come."
"But are you sure you want an outsider along?" he asked dubiously, annoyed at his own pettishness.
"Quite sure," she said, and though his eyes avoided her own as she spoke those two monosyllables, he could guess from the vibrant tone of her voice just what expression she wore.
He agreed to go, then, gladly enough.
"And you deserve some fun, anyway," she said happily, "after being penned up this way."
"Yes, I'd like to drink in a little of the fulness and color of existence now, for a change. I feel like taking life down in gulps."
"Of course you do—then let's begin to-night. Is it a pledge?"
"It is. And here's to the fulness of life."
"The fulness of life—shake on it, as they say down in my country."