He was uneasy and annoyed. That was just like Esther—no consideration!
He found her in her dressing room, with a crowd of people, but she sent them all away.
“He’s an awfully old friend,” she explained, “and very shy. I’ll never be able to catch him again.”
The little country girl had certainly become a handsome woman, he reflected, and she had lost none of her impudent charm, her mocking tranquillity.
“Well, Tommy!” she said.[Pg 40]
“Well!” he answered, and he had exactly his old air of a boy acting the man of the world.
“My, you’ve got on!” she said admiringly. “You’re really splendid, Tommy! Are you a millionaire?”
“No,” he answered, flushing, well aware that she was laughing at him. “I’m in business.”
“How did you do that?”
Naturally he didn’t care to talk about his heroic effort to rehabilitate himself—how he had actually found himself a job, and won his alarming uncle’s forgiveness for his one wickedness by patient industry and some years of complete self-effacement.