"I hope you will," said Aunt Jane. She was looking at him with a deep, big kindness that suddenly broke through the little crust of cynicism in his face. He leaned forward and held out his hand.
"Thank you," he said.
[XXI]
"I wonder what I'd better do with these." She looked at the flowers in the box in her lap. "They're about the prettiest ones she's sent you—forget-me-nots." She lifted a handful of the blossoms and held them out.
He regarded them cynically. "I'm not likely to forget!" he said.
She looked at him over the flowers and smiled. "She doesn't seem to forget either.... I guess she thinks a good deal of you," she added quaintly.
He shook his head. "You'd be wrong. She doesn't care any more for me than—that clothes-pole there!"
Aunt Jane looked at it uncritically.