She laid it down speculatively, the look of Eve through her lashes. Three nights she had put him off. Yes, the apple might safely be held a bit closer to-night—but not too close.
He was waiting just within the stage door, his face eager with anticipation, his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. As she came up the stairs that led from the chorus dressing-rooms under the stage, he stepped forward and both hands came out of the pockets.
She clasped the right one, smiling up at him, and [138] ]his frank eyes shone. He piloted her to a car at the curb. As the door slammed with the sudden intimacy of shutting out the rest of the world, he leaned forward, the glow of his eyes reflected in his voice.
“Gee, this is great! I was afraid you’d turn me down again.” He did not wait for an answer but crowded into the next few moments all the hours of thought which her refusal of his invitations had lengthened into days. “You must have thought me an awful rube, staring at you the way I did. I’ve been afraid it made you sore at me. Did it?”
“No woman thinks a man’s a rube for staring at her.”
“I couldn’t help it. I just couldn’t take my eyes off you.”
In the shadows of the car she smiled softly.
“Funny, how I walked into that place, cussing the smoke and noise and then saw you. Lord, suppose I hadn’t gone!”
She smiled again.
He went on.