It was February then, and they were sitting in the parish house. Delight had been filling out Sunday-school reports to parents, an innovation she detested. For a little while there was only the scratching of her pen to be heard and an occasional squeal from the church proper, where the organ was being repaired. The rector sat back in his chair, his fingertips together, and whistled noiselessly, a habit of his when he was disturbed. Now and then he glanced at Delight's bent head.
“My dear,” he commented finally.
“Just a minute. That wretched little Simonton girl has been absent three Sundays out of four. And on the fourth one she said she had a toothache and sat outside on the steps. Well, daddy?”
“Do you see anything of Graham Spencer now?”
“Very little.” She looked at him with frank eyes. “He has changed somehow, daddy. When we do meet he is queer. I sometimes think he avoids me.”
He fell back on his noiseless whistling. And Delight, who knew his every mood, got up and perched herself on the arm of his chair.
“Don't you get to thinking things,” she said. And slipped an arm around his neck.
“I did think, in the winter—”
“I'll tell you about that,” she broke in, bravely. “I suppose, if he'd cared for me at all, I'd have been crazy about him. It isn't because he's good looking. I—well, I don't know why. I just know, as long as I can remember, I—however, that's not important. He thinks I'm a nice little thing and lets it go at that. It's a good bit worse, of course, than having him hate me.”
“Sometimes I think you are not very happy.”