For a moment his eyes blazed, then he swaggered. “If I am, what then? I’d rather worship a woman like that for the rest of my life than marry anybody I’ve ever seen——”
“You don’t know a thing about her except that she has lovely eyes.”
She had risen, and as she stood in front of him there was again that effect of two young cockerels on the edge of an encounter. Then they were saved by their sense of humor. “Oh, go to bed,” young Baldwin told her; “you’re jealous, Janey.”
She started up the stairs but before she had reached the landing he called after her. “Jane, what have you on hand for to-morrow?”
She leaned over the rail and looked down at him. “Friday? Feed the chickens. Feed the cats. Help Sophy clean the silver. Drink tea at four with Mrs. Allison, and three other young things of eighty.”
“Well, look here. I don’t want to face Towne. He’ll say things about Edith—and insist on her coming back—she says he will, and that’s why she won’t call him up. And you’ve got more diplomacy than I have. You might make it all seem—reasonable. Will you do it, Jane?”
“Do you mean that you want me to call on him at his office?”
“Yes. Go in with me in the morning.”
“Baldy, are you shirking? Or do you really think me as wonderful as your words seem to imply?”
“Oh, if you’re going to put it like that.”