"Oh," she cried suddenly, clasping her hands, "didn't you wear a red blazer—red and white stripes? And hadn't you some ridiculous nickname?"
"Good. You've remembered. I am glad." He threw his head back and laughed, and she liked the shine of his white teeth in the firelight. "Of course I had. They called me 'Scrags.'"
She was silent for a little while, and he knew that she was seeing again the shabby old rectory garden with its roses and hollyhocks, and its lumpy tennis lawn, and himself, the youth in the scarlet blazer.
"It was my old school blazer," he told her in a gentle voice, not to interrupt too much the current of her thoughts. "I remember it was too short in the arms, and I was rather ashamed of it. I thought," he added whimsically, "that you might laugh at it."
"I?" The gentle astonishment in her eyes amused him.
"Yes, you. Some day I'll tell you about it, but not now. I've a piece of good news for you," he added. "Your husband and I had a long talk this morning, and as his present business arrangements seem rather unsatisfactory, and as I happen to need a—kind of partner in one of my little business concerns, I've persuaded him to take the position. It's nothing very brilliant," he went on hurriedly, frightened by the change in her face. "Only five hundred a year, but he seems to think he would prefer it to this present work he is doing——"
The look she turned on him was astonishingly like a look of anger, and for some reason it delighted him in its contrast to her husband's easy gratitude. He hated scenes, and was not very well versed in the ways of women, but for reasons of his own his heart sang as she rose.
"I understand very little about business," she said coldly. "But it's very kind of you to give a position to my husband. I think, if you will excuse me, I will leave you now. I am sure Grisel will be back here soon, and I've a seamstress upstairs."
Instead of going to fetch her, he waited there over an hour for Grisel, walking up and down the room, and without visible impatience.
When his little sweetheart arrived she ran upstairs for a warmer coat for they were going to motor. She was gone some time and when they were in the car and he had tucked her luxuriously up in a big rug of flexible dark fur she explained to him why she had kept him waiting.