“I can well believe it,” Irene replied. “With Grace gone there’s nothing left of the picture but the frame. She’s one in a million. You’ll look a long time before you find another girl like Grace Durland.”
“You’ve said something!” John affirmed, and pretending that Grace was not present he and Irene engaged in a lively discussion of Grace’s merits. With Irene this was of course only a device for flirting with John. John understood perfectly that she was flirting with him. As this went on John and Irene were taking careful note of each other. Two natures could not have been more truly antipodal. Grace was amused to see them at such pains to please each other. She interrupted them occasionally with a question as to some virtue attributed to her, which they feigned not to hear but answered indirectly.
He was already preparing for his removal to the city and wore a new suit and hat and carried a pair of tan gloves which obviously had not been worn. He struck his hat with them occasionally as he talked. John had always been quick to note little tricks of manner and speech and when they pleased him he frankly adopted them. His manner of playing with his gloves was imitated from a young instructor at the university who carried gloves with him everywhere, even into the class room, where he played with them as he heard recitations. John in his new raiment looked less like a countryman than Grace had thought possible. She recalled what a cynical senior had once said of him—that above the collar he looked like a signer of the Declaration of Independence but that the rest of him was strongly suggestive of the barnyard. His eyes missed nothing; he was too eager to get ahead in the world not to study his own imperfections and overcome them. Having impressed John with the idea that for the few minutes they spent together he was the only specimen of the male species in the world, Irene languidly glanced at her watch.
“Only ten minutes to get back, Grace. I’ll keep the wheels of commerce turning while you talk to Mr. Moore. Do forgive me, old things, for keeping you waiting.”
As she gathered up her purse and vanity box Moore protested that he and Grace had nothing to say to each other which she might not hear.
“Oh, don’t try that on me!” Irene replied, looking from one to the other meaningfully.
“If you leave us alone John will begin talking poetry,” said Grace. “Please wait, I don’t feel a bit like poetry today!”
“There, Miss Kirby; you see Grace doesn’t want to be alone with me! I’ll tell you what! I’m staying in town tonight and it would be fine if we could all go to a show together. There’s a picture I’ve read about—‘Mother Earth,’ they call it; said to give a fine idea of pioneer life. I guess we owe it to the folks who drove out the Indians and cleaned up the varmints to show ’em a little respect, and they say that picture’s a humdinger. If you don’t like the notion and there’s some other show——”
His eyes were bright with expectancy as he awaited their decision.
“You see,” he added with a broad smile, “now that I’ve sold my last pup and paid my debts I feel a little like celebrating.”