“Wonderful!”
She had dropped into a chair and sat pigeon-toed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her mouth slightly agape.
“Carrigan, how did you do it?”
“Look in that bundle and you’ll see.” He left the room hastily, but before he had gone far he heard a thin, short cry. Happiness and pain are closely akin.
“If she only—” began Carrigan.
He choked.
“If this was only a masked ball,” he said at last, “she might get by. But even then that hair—”
He swore softly again.
“If Maurie turns her down after this—I’ll bust his face wide open.”
He thought of Gordon’s wide shoulders and sighed.