'I brought some candy,' he cried fiercely. 'There! On the table!'
She knit her brows for a brief moment. Then opened the box.
'How awfully nice of you... You'll have some?'
'No. I don't eat candy. I was thinking of—I want to get you out—Come on, let's take a walk!'
She smiled a little, around a chocolate. Surely she didn't know!
She had seemed, during her first days in Sunbury, rather timid at times. But there was in this smile more than a touch of healthy self-confidence. No girl, indeed, could find herself making so definite a success as Cicely had made here from her first day without acquiring at least the beginnings of self-confidence. It was a success that had forced Elbow Jenkins and Herb de Casselles to ignore small rebuffs and persist in fighting over her. It permitted her, even in a village where social conformity was the breath of life, to do odd, unexpected things. Such as allowing herself to be interested, frankly, in Henry Calverly.
So she smiled as she nibbled a chocolate.
He said it again, breathlessly:—
'I was thinking of asking you to take a walk.'
'Well'—still that smile—'why don't you?'