II
“Did I drive away a visitor?” asked Walter.
“No—she was through with me. You’re rather a relief.”
Margaret could smile with the most complete friendliness of any woman he had ever seen, thought her visitor. She lifted her head and smiled straight at you. There were no evasions in her way of showing that she was glad to see you. She didn’t hold her gladness as a prize, but made you a straight gift of it. He liked the dress she was wearing—a fawn colored cloth dress that outlined the straight lines of her figure—he liked the way her hair grew away from its boyish side parting with a little curve here and there.
“I think I am a little early,” he said, looking at his watch, “but I thought since I was through at the office I’d come up, and you might be willing to come out for a ride before we dine. It’s just five o’clock.”
“That sounds very nice. Sit down and amuse yourself while I get my hat.”
He obeyed, finding a book which did not seem to interest him at all but which gave him a chance to turn pages while she put on her hat and piled the papers on her desk. She turned to him as she was doing that.
“You spoil me.”
“I’d like to spoil you.”
“Spoil me by treating me like a human being—forgetting that I’m a woman and that you’ve been taught to flatter women.”