Jennie rose too and came around the table towards him. She had suddenly summoned back a smile, and she moved daintily inside the blue kimono. Above the stalk of that straight, demure, Japanesy blue, her head nodded like a bright blossom--with its fair, wavy hair, blue eyes, and childishly rounded cheeks, still gaudy with the remains of rouge.
She tripped forward till she was almost touching Merriam, stopped, and suddenly raised her eyes to him.
"Kiss me good-bye!" she said.
We may suspect that it was a sort of point of honour with Jennie to retrieve the rebuff she had received in the sitting room. As for Merriam, in spite of the obvious deliberateness of this assault, I am not perfectly sure I could answer for him if it had not been for Margery. But Margery's presence saved him from serious temptation.
Instead of stooping to kiss the lifted lips he caught Jennie's hand that hung at her side, and, stepping back half a step, raised the hand and kissed it.
Sometimes the inspirations of youth are singularly happy. It seems to me that this one was of that kind: it involved neither yielding nor discourtesy.
Jennie was somewhat taken aback, yet she could not be hurt by a gesture so gallant.
"Good-bye, Jennie," he said. "I hope to be the best man at your wedding before long."
"Oh!" she said, and withdrew her hand. Then: "Good-bye!"
After a moment's hesitation and a last quite shy glance at Merriam she suddenly gathered up the skirts of the kimono and ran into the sitting room.