“You're happy now, aren't you?” he asked in tone of assurance. “Then, confound it, I must own I'm paid for letting my wise bachelor notions go hang, just for this time!”
“Thank you,” she answered very gently. “And I'm paid for trying to be reasonable.”
He laughed, suddenly content. Between them, the little lad who had never owned a toy in his life, stowing the red train carefully away between has feet, gave himself wholly to the rocking-horse.
“Well, Ellen,” was Martha Macauley's greeting to her sister, “did you have as interesting a time dressing the child as you expected?”
“I had a charming time,” replied Mrs. Lessing. She shook the dust out of her long gray veils smiling at her memory of the morning.
“Did R. P. prove docile?”
“'Docile' doesn't seem to me just the word.”
“I used it in an attempt at fine irony,” explained Mrs. Macauley.
“Well, was he tractable, then?”
“He was very polite and kind and jolly—until the real business of shopping began. Then he became suspicious—and a trifle autocratic.” She recalled his look as he told her that he would trust her, but that he meant to keep an eye upon her.