A man may tell himself that he doesn’t like flattery, but if it is cleverly administered—and if, though he is modest enough, he can’t help knowing himself that he has done a good thing in a fine way—how can he quite help being human enough to feel a glow of pleasure? If it’s not overdone—and Miss Fitch knew much better than that—much can thus be accomplished in breaking down a masculine wall of reserve. Black’s wall didn’t break that Sunday—oh, not at all—but it undeniably did crumble a little bit along the upper edges.
After dinner was over, however, as if he were somehow subtly aware that the wall was undergoing an attack, Black withdrew with the other men to the further end of the living room to continue to talk things over. He was at some pains to seat himself so that he was facing these men, and had no view down the long room to the other end, where the women were gathered.
Miss Fitch, looking his way from a corner of a great divan, sent a smile and a wave toward Tom, who, torn between allegiance to Fanny and his new and absorbing devotion to Black, had for the time being followed the men. Then she said negligently to Nan Lockhart:
“Your minister certainly has a stunning profile. Look at it there against that dark-blue curtain.”
Nan looked for an instant, then back at her guest. “Oh, Fanny!” she murmured, rebukingly, “don’t you ever get tired of that game?”
“What game, my dear?”
“Oh—playing for every last one of them!” answered Annette Lockhart, with some impatience. She was a dark-eyed young woman with what might be called a strong face, by no means unattractive in its clean-cut lines. She had a personality all her own; she had been a leader always; people liked Nan Lockhart, and believed in her thoroughly. Her friendship for Fanny Fitch was a matter of old college ties—Fanny was nobody’s fool, and she was clever enough to keep a certain hold upon Nan through the exercise of a rather remarkable dramatic talent. Nan had written plays, and Fanny had acted them; and now that college days were over they had plans for the future which meant a continued partnership in the specialty of each.
“Interested in him yourself, I judge,” Miss Fitch replied teasingly. “Don’t worry! The chances are all with you. He’s horribly sober minded—he’ll fall for your sort sooner than for mine.”
But a certain gleam in her eyes said something else—that she was quite satisfied with the beginning she had made. Another man might have taken a seat where he could look at her; that Black deliberately looked the other way this astute young person considered proof positive that he found her unexpectedly distracting to his thoughts.
When, at the end of an hour, Black turned around, ready to take his farewell, Miss Fitch was absent from the room. He glanced about for her, found her not, told himself that he was glad, and went out. As the door of the living room closed behind him, she came down the stairs, a white hat on her head, a white parasol in her hand. They passed out of the house door together. At the street Miss Fitch turned in the direction of the manse, two blocks away. Black paused and removed his hat—with his left hand he did it rather awkwardly.