She was perfectly docile to his new conversational lead, but the fact that she yielded, that she knew it would be beyond her powers to force that issue until he was ready for it, thrilled her—brought the blood into her cheeks. The thing he was doing might be absurd, but his way of doing it was not absurd. He had changed, somehow, or something had changed between them. She engaged all his powers. If there should be a struggle now, his mind would not betray him.
Just before they left the restaurant he asked her if she would dine with him some night and go to a show afterward, and when she said she would he asked what night would be convenient to her.
Her inflection was perfectly demure and even casual, but nothing could keep the sudden "richening" that Jimmy Wallace had tried to describe out of her voice, and the light of mischief danced openly in her eyes when she said:
"Why, to-night's all right for me." She added, "If that's not too soon for you."
He flushed and dropped his hands from the edge of the table where they'd been resting, but he answered evenly enough:
"No, it's not too soon for me."
And then force of habit betrayed Rose into a stupid blunder that almost precipitated a small quarrel.
"Tell me what you'd like to see," she said, "and I'll telephone for the seats."
Then, at his horrified stare, she gasped out an explanation. "Roddy, I didn't mean buy the seats! I don't have to buy seats at any theater. And at this time of year they're so glad to have somebody to give them to that it seems sort of—wicked to pay real money."
"It's my mistake," he said. "Naturally, going to the theater wouldn't be much of a—treat to you. I'd forgotten that."