Came the light sound of feet dancing along the hall, the door jerked open in his face, sudden vision of grey eyes and bobbed chestnut hair; the swift bright smile:
“Good morning!”—her offered hand, cool and fresh in his. “More flowers? But yesterday’s flowers are perfectly fresh! Thank you, Mr. Annan, so much——”
She was the most engaging person to give things to—anything, no matter how trivial—and her delight and child-like lack of restraint were refreshing reward to a young man accustomed to feminine sophistication.
Any sort of a package excited her, and she lost no time in opening it.
Now, with her arms full of iris and peonies, she exclaimed her delight again, again made her personal gratitude a charming reward out of all proportion to the gift.
“If you’ll turn on the water in the bath-tub,” she said, “I’ll lay them there until I can find something to put them in.”
This was the usual procedure. He had sent her a lot of inexpensive glass bowls, jars and vases. He now gave the flowers a bath while she ran to the pantry and came back with half a dozen receptacles.
Together they arranged the flowers and carried them into the three rooms of the little apartment which, already, was blossoming like a Persian garden. And all the while their desultory chatter continued—fragments left from their last parting—gossip resumed, unasked questions held over and now remembered, punctuated by the girl’s unspoiled pleasure in every blossom that she chose and placed.
Breakfast was ready when they were—the sort of breakfast she remembered he liked.
Nothing about Eris seemed to have been spoiled—least of all her appetite. He thought it charmingly childish, and it always amused him. Besides, the girl’s lovely freshness in the morning always fascinated him. Only children turned unblemished faces to the morning in New York.