Hawtrey laughed, and stooping down packed up a package he had brought from the store.
“Well,” he said, “after all, I think I’d rather try to please you.” He opened the package. “Are these things very much too big for you, Sally?”
The girl’s eyes glistened at the sight of the mittens he held out. They were very different from the kind she had been in the habit of wearing, and when he carelessly took out the fur cap she broke into a little cry of delight. Hawtrey watched her with a curious expression. He was not quite sure that he had meant Sally to have the things when he had purchased them, but he was quite contented now. The one gift he had diffidently offered Agatha since her arrival in Canada had been almost coldly laid aside.
In a few minutes Sally laid out supper, and as she waited upon him daintily or filled his cup Hawtrey thrust the misgivings he had felt further behind him. Sally, he thought with a feeling of satisfaction, could certainly cook. When the meal was finished he sat talking about nothing in particular for almost an hour, and then it occurred to him that Sally’s mother would be back before very long. She was a person he had no great liking for and he was anxious to go.
“Well,” he said, “I must be getting home. Won’t you let me see you with that cap on?”
Sally, who betrayed no diffidence, put on the cap, and stood before a dingy mirror with both hands raised while she pressed it down upon her gleaming hair. She flashed a smiling glance at him. It was quite sufficient, and as she turned again Hawtrey slipped forward as softly as he could. She swung around, however, with a flush in her face and a forceful restraining gesture.
“Don’t spoil it all, Gregory,” she said sharply.
Hawtrey, who saw that she meant it—which was a cause of some astonishment to him—dropped his arms that were held out to embrace her.
“Oh,” he said, “if you look at it in that way I’m sorry. Good-night, Sally!”
She let him go, but she smiled when he drove away; and half an hour later she showed the cap and mittens to her mother with significant candor. Mrs. Creighton, who was a severely practical person, nodded.