"Your coffee is good, dear; you do look after me in a simply tophole way."
His words were like the prelude of a song to her. She listened for more, with a smile, a real smile, no more wise, but foolish. It had the foolishness of all love in it, so easily and completely could he give her pain, or pleasure.
He answered the smile with one of constraint.
Feeling in the pocket of his lounge coat, he uttered abruptly:
"I brought you a few sweets, dear; passed a shop on my way; thought—"
He handed over a packet of chocolates and sat back with a sigh expressive of satisfaction, while, with a cry of delight and gratitude, she untied the ribbons.
"You are a dear!" she said tremulously. "I must share them with the children; and this pink ribbon—pink for a girl, blue for a boy! It'll do for baby's bonnet. What lovely ribbon, silk all through!"
"Oh, well, they weren't cheap chocolates," Osborn observed.
"I see that. They're delicious." She broke one slowly between her teeth. Sweets! They brought back those dear old spoiled-girl days to her; precious days which no woman values till she has lost them, and the prize of which no man understands.
"Glad you like them," he said, looking at her with a strange, an almost guilty softness. "I like you to have things that you enjoy. You know that, don't you?"