She sighed. "I don't know—I hope so!"—she lingered dubiously over it, looking away again, the while her hand put back the fleecy, golden what-you-call-it that was snuggling to her eyes. I looked at the goddess-like forearm, bared to above the elbow, where it slipped from sight under the roll of sleeve, and thought of that night in my apartment when she had made me feel of her biceps, don't you know.
How deliciously shy she was! Remembered hearing Pugsley say they are often that way with the development of love. Told me he thought he'd get married once—looked over the girls of his set and picked out one; then he went to see her. She was devilish cordial at first and until Pugsley began to tell her about it, then she began to grow agitated—finally went out of the room and had hysterics. Next time he saw her she hardly was able to speak to him! Said that ended it and he passed her up—too dashed much bother trying to follow 'em, he decided; they were too high-strung, too emotional, too uncertain of themselves, he thought.
I gave her five seconds, and then—
"You don't know?" I repeated with gentle reproach. "Oh, I say, you know! You know you know you know!" By Jove, that sounded rather rum, but I knew she knew I knew she knew—see?
She looked at me sidewise, her slender forefinger pressing the half-parted lips slowly shaping in a curve. Then her little teeth flashed, jewel-like—regular jolly pearl setting in the frankest, sweetest smile!—and then her glorious arm and wrist arched suddenly toward me.
"Yes!" she said contritely, and with the most delightful, kindest inflection and laugh—such a laugh!—a laugh gurglingly melodious—oh, dash it, yes; I mean just that!—like the flute notes in the overture to what's-his-name—that sort!
"That's the way I love to hear a man talk!" she said warmly. "I think it takes an American to stand up for his own place, his own times—please!"
And gently, but with a lovely smile, she withdrew her hand that I had folded close in mine. I let it go, for I saw her look toward the house, and, of course, I understood—jolly careless of me not to have remembered—but she would know from my nod and shrug that I comprehended.
And really, by Jove, it was almost as pleasant as holding her hand, just to watch her leaning back against the iron pillar about which curved the dark-leaved tendrils of some purple-flowering vine. By Jove, she just looked like a stunning, white, Easter-card angel—that's what!—even to the golden hair they always have and the jolly wings; for her gleaming arms, spread behind her head, made you think of that. But that was as near as one of them could come to her, for no golden-haired angel in white flowing nightgown was ever a patch on her for style!
Never a one could look so chic as she did in her smart linen suit, with its blue flannel collar, caught low with a flowing, breezy tie; and no jolly angel I ever saw pictured could sport a waist like that, so dainty, so modish, so jolly snug and—er—squeezable, don't you know—never! And I was devilish sure that no barefooted or sandaled angel would ever dare to put a foot beside one of those little white Oxfords or that arching instep, just blushing faintly through the silken mesh that held it—well, I guess not! And where the angel, I should like to know, that could match her glorious, fluffy pompadour or the distracting little golden smoke wisps that whirled and pulled and tangled and tossed and twisted and tugged, trying to lift her in their feeble arms into the current of the wandering breeze?