“Oh, really, really,” he assured her.
“And you want to do something nice to make it up to me?”
“Anything,” he promised, smiling at her as at a child.
“You’ve promised! You’ve promised!” She indulged herself in a noiseless hand-clasp. “Well, then, the forfeit is to tell me all about it.”
“All about what?”
“Goodness gracious! Don’t you remember? That’s what we were both horrid about. I asked you to tell me about it, and you—”
He remembered, evidently with an amusement not entirely free from annoyance. “Oh, I’m safe. I’ll never see you to tell you.”
She sat down on the bottom step and drew her white skirts about her. “What’s the matter with right now?” she asked, smiling.
“I’ve got to earn my living right now,” he objected, beginning with a swift deftness to bore a tiny hole.
She was diverted for an instant. “What are you doing to our nice old newel-post?” she asked. “I thought they said you were going to set up the new sideboard.”