"Now do tell me what book you have there?" he asked, as they turned east on Forty-second Street. "Is it something very learned or very frivolous?"
With a little laugh, Nancy handed him the package.
"You can open it, if you promise to tie it up again," she said, watching his face out of the corners of her eyes, as he untied the string. He glanced from the book to her face, trying to look disapproving, though he could not quite conceal his look of naïve pleasure.
"Very frivolous. I see that I shall have to direct your book-buying as well as your business. Why didn't you let me get it for you if you wanted it?"
"Because I wanted to get it for myself—you probably wouldn't have let me get it."
"Well, if I had given it to you, I could have written something in it, and that's something I always wanted to do, you know, something about 'the compliments of the author' in a flowing script."
"Well, why don't you write something in it anyway?"
"May I?"
"Only not 'the compliments of the author.'"
He took her to the train, and then standing beside her seat, took out his fountain pen, and scribbled on the fly-leaf of the little volume.