"I'll bring the basket," said Helen Ribot. "We'll all help, if that is allowed."
"You wouldn't fully appreciate it if you did not help," Phil assured her.
"No, I'll bring the basket," Henriette insisted. "If one did not watch you you'd never let any one do anything for one's self."
"I foresee a success," said Phil.
He was thinking of the auspices more than of the cook's part as he watched Henriette pass around the corner of the house. When she reappeared his glance happened to be resting on the same spot. She stopped, waving her hand in a way that let the sleeve fall back from the graceful forearm to signify that she was ready, most enchantingly ready, for the strawberry shortcake adventure.
"Isn't she beautiful!" Helen exclaimed. "Aren't you proud of your seventeenth cousin?"
"Helen!" admonished Mrs. Sanford. "You must not say such things."
"Oh, but I agree, quite enthusiastically!" said Phil.
He had no reason to change his mind as he assisted her in picking the berries, an operation which brought his head so close to hers that one of the strands of her hair brushed his cheek. Her quick gesture restoring the truant to place prolonged the thrill that had proceeded from the point of contact, with an intimation of self-consciousness on her part as well as on his. Helen was picking, too, but always on the other side of the basket. At length she left off in order to answer questions about her mother and affairs at home in France, which Mrs. Sanford had foreborne asking at tea.
When the basket was filled the vicar planned to show Phil the graves of his ancestors in the little churchyard, but Henriette forestalled him with the suggestion that the younger generation take a walk before dinner.