“Sit down,” said Mr. Thatcher briefly, pushing a wooden armed office chair towards her. He went away momentarily, and then came back. “Have you had your lunch?”
“No,” replied Mrs. Thatcher faintly.
“Well, neither have I. I think you’d be better for something to eat. You wait five minutes and I’ll be ready to go out with you. We’ll have a little lunch together.”
She raised her drooping head to give him the wistfully pleased, half-encouraged look of one dependent on a benign higher power. Her heart was swelling with the joy of triumph.
When he returned to her with his overcoat, he had been brushed clear of the factory dust and looked trim and smiling, hat in hand.
“It’s nearly two o’clock. I think I won’t come back here this afternoon; I’ve got through about all there is to do. It’s a dull day. I’m going to take you around to the Electrographic Club to lunch; they’ve got a new room for ladies. You’d like to see the pictures there. Come on—this way.”
“Oh, how lovely!” said Mrs. Thatcher, with a deep, contented sigh. “How good you are, Nevin! Do I look all right?”
“Oh, you’ll do,” said her husband, with an affectionate squeeze of the arm next him. “See here! You mustn’t look at me in the street that way; people will think we’re engaged.”
“Well, why not?” murmured Mrs. Thatcher. “I don’t care what anybody thinks—Darling!”