“Isn't it expected?” she asked.
“Of you, you mean?”
“No,” she returned. “For you, I mean!”
In this style, which uses a word for any meaning that quick look and colourful gesture care to endow it with, she was an expert; and she carried it merrily on, leaving him at liberty (one of the great values of the style) to choose as he would how much or how little she meant. He was content to supply mere cues, for although he had little coquetry of his own, he had lately begun to find that the only interesting moments in his life were those during which Alice Adams coquetted with him. Happily, these obliging moments extended themselves to cover all the time he spent with her. However serious she might seem, whatever appeared to be her topic, all was thou-and-I.
He planned for more of it, seeing otherwise a dull evening ahead; and reverted, afterwhile, to a forbidden subject. “About that dance at Miss Lamb's—since your father's so much better——”
She flushed a little. “Now, now!” she chided him. “We agreed not to say any more about that.”
“Yes, but since he IS better——”
Alice shook her head. “He won't be better to-morrow. He always has a bad day after a good one especially after such a good one as this is.”
“But if this time it should be different,” Russell persisted; “wouldn't you be willing to come if he's better by to-morrow evening? Why not wait and decide at the last minute?”
She waved her hands airily. “What a pother!” she cried. “What does it matter whether poor little Alice Adams goes to a dance or not?”