He was hard at work when she returned, carrying a wicker basket.
Again he protested because she was taking so much trouble, but she laid aside her coat and insisted on arranging the food on a corner of the table, a happy flush on her cheeks, giving him thanks with her eyes when he praised her gown.
“I'm going to look in on you after the show,” she declared. “Father will come with me.”
Vona remained with him until the wall clock warned her.
She asked him to wait a moment when he brought her wraps. She stood before him in her gay garb, wistfully appealing. “Frank, I was intending to have a little play of my own with you at the hall to-night. I was going to look right past that Durgin boy, straight down into your eyes, when I came to a certain place in the play. I was intending to let the folks of Egypt know something, providing they all don't know it by now. This is what I have to say, and now I'm saying it to the only audience I care for:
“'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel,
Or say for thee I'd die.
Ah, well-a-day, the sweetest melody
Could never, never say one half my love for thee.”
Then, after a moment, she escaped from his ardent embrace.
“Remember that, dearest,” she called from the doorway.
“I'll remember it every time I start with a line of figures, you blessed girl. And then how my pencil will go dancing up the column!”
After she had gone he pulled the curtain cords, raising the curtains so that they covered the lower sashes; he did not care to be seen at his work by the folks who were on their way to the hall.