“You had a hunch, Moira. Do you get those telepathic messages very often?” He was crossing the office to shake her hand.
“I've never noticed particularly—that is, until I came to work here. But I always know when you are returning after a considerable absence.” She gave him her hand. “I'm so glad you're back.”
“Why?” he demanded bluntly.
She flushed. “I—I really don't know, Mr. Bryce.”
“Well, then,” he persisted, “what do you think makes you glad?”
“I had been thinking how nice it would be to have you back, Mr. Bryce. When you enter the office, it's like a breeze rustling the tops of the Redwoods. And your father misses you so; he talks to me a great deal about you. Why, of course we miss you; anybody would.”
As he held her hand, he glanced down at it and noted how greatly it had changed during the past few months. The skin was no longer rough and brown, and the fingers, formerly stiff and swollen from hard work, were growing more shapely. From her hand his glance roved over the girl, noting the improvements in her dress, and the way the thick, wavy black hair was piled on top of her shapely head.
“It hadn't occurred to me before, Moira,” he said with a bright impersonal smile that robbed his remark of all suggestion of masculine flattery, “but it seems to me I'm unusually glad to see you, also. You've been fixing your hair different.”
The soft lambent glow leaped again into Moira's eyes. He had noticed her—particularly. “Do you like my hair done that way?” she inquired eagerly.
“I don't know whether I do or not. It's unusual—for you. You look mighty sweetly old-fashioned with it coiled in back—somewhat like an old-fashioned daguerreotype of my mother. Is this new style the latest in hairdressing in Sequoia?”