“Some other evening, Ed. I promised father to help get up his account books.”
“You’re not angry with me?” he asked. “If you’re not, give me a kiss before I go.”
A sharp smile showed on her lips.
“I’m not angry, but I’m going to penalize you to that extent. If you must have a cheek to press, go kiss–––” She paused, while the conviction darted into his mind that she had remembered that Johnson girl blunder after all, then said: “Mr. Burkhardt’s cheek.”
Again relief swept him.
“Come, be kind, Janet,” he began. But she was already through the gate and skipping up the walk, vanishing in the gloom of the veranda. The screen door clapped shut. “Peeved, all right. I’ll have to be extra-nice to her for a day or so until she calms down,” he murmured to himself. “Must send her a box of chocolates and some magazines to-morrow to show my contrite heart; that always gets ’em. Hang it, it’s time to fix a day, too. We’ve been engaged long 106 enough. She sure has a figure and face––a beaut! I guess she didn’t smell the booze on my breath. Got to be careful about that till we’re married.” He jumped into his car.
The screen door had clapped shut, but Janet had not entered. She had employed the artifice to convey the impression it had. She did not wish to go in to her work just yet, for calm as she had appeared during the interview her emotions were running full tide. Love Ed Sorenson? Marry him? She groped for and dropped into a wicker chair, her head sinking in shame and self-abasement. Never––never!
And before her mind swam another face, a face with the hair ruffled about the brow, clear of eyes and strong-lined, as she had beheld it in the moonlight of the road.
All at once she tugged at a finger, fiercely pulling off the engagement ring. She rubbed her cheek as well, with an angry hand, for the memory of kisses was burning her as by fire.
Then she sat quite motionless for a long time.