"It's perfectly absurd—but I must do it to please him. Who would credit him with such an attention?"
"May I stay while you put them in?" he asked meekly.
"Of course you may, you sisterless youth."
I parted the bunch, and pinned a spray on each side, in the coils and plaits of my over heavy hair. Jamie said nothing till this finishing touch had been put to my toilet.
"I say, it's ripping, Marcia. Cale will be your abject slave from henceforth. By the way, I 've never heard him call you 'Happy', as he proposed to do."
"Nor I."
"I wonder what's the reason? Perhaps he thought he had been too fresh, and he does n't dare—There 's Ewart!" He was off on a run.
I thought I would wait for the various greetings to be over before going down. I felt sure I should not see his hand withdrawn this time, as on the occasion of his first home-coming. When I heard his voice below in the hall, I was aware of a warm thrill of delight, a joyous expectancy of good, a feeling as if the home-coming were my own; for never in my life had I been welcomed as he was, with a shout from Jamie, an outburst from the dogs, and joyful ejaculations from Angélique and Marie.
I went down, my cheeks glowing, my heart warm with the home-sense, and—I wondered at myself—my hand outstretched to his. When his closed upon it with the same cordial pressure of the week before, I knew for the first time in my life the joy of being "at home".
And I failed to read the second sign.