He thought, 'A lot she'd care if she wanted to be with me!'
He said, 'What you doing to-night?'
'Oh, a couple of Chicago men are coming out.'
'Oh!' It was between a grunt and a snort. He struck out at such a gait that she finally said:—
'If you want to walk at that pace I'm afraid you'll have to walk alone.'
So far a failure. Just as with Humphrey, the situation had given him no opportunity to display his own kind of thing. The picturesque slang phrase had not then been coined; but Henry was in wrong and knew it. It was defeat.
The first faint hope stirred when Mrs Henderson rose from a hammock and came to the top step to clasp his hand. She thought him a genius. Well, she had been accompanist through all those rehearsals for Iolanthe. She ought to know.
She asked him now, in her alertly offhand way, to stay to dinner. He accepted instantly.
4
Mildred Henderson was little, slim, quick, with tiny feet and hands. Despite these latter she was the most accomplished pianist in Sunbury. She had snappy little eyes, and a way of smiling quickly and brightly. The Hendersons had lived four or five years in Sunbury. They had no children. They had no servant at this time—but she possessed the gift of getting up pleasant little meals without apparent effort.