“Any more?——Never?——What way?——”
She was gone.
He dashed the little package into the gutter and strode off in the opposite direction, his face white, his lip quivering.
If Macgregor seemed in the past to have needed a thorough rousing, he had it now. For an hour he tramped the streets, his heart hot within him, the burden of his thoughts—“She thinks I’m no’ guid enough.”
And the end of the tramp found him at the door of the home of Jessie Mary. For a wonder, on a Saturday night at that hour, she was in. She opened the door herself.
At the sight of the boy something like fear fell upon her. For what had he come thus boldly?
He did not keep her in suspense. “Will ye gang wi’ me to that dance ye was talkin’ aboot?” he asked abruptly, adding, “I’ve got the money for the tickets.”
A curse, a blow even, would have surprised her less.
“Will ye gang, Jessie?” he said impatiently.
For the life of her she could not answer at once.