“Then why can’t I come to see you sometime in the evening if that isn’t so? I don’t ask it of many nice girls.”
She caught at the delimiting phrase, “nice girls,” and glanced up again. By this time, they had passed through the living room; and he had awkwardly opened the door into the kitchen.
“I haven’t known you very long,” she said.
“There isn’t a lot to know about me,” he grumbled. Then his face cleared like the sunshine breaking through. “I could teach you to savvey the whole works in an evening.”
“There are the chocolate wafers up over the ice-chest—that brown tin box.” He reached up and heaved the package down, putting into that simple and easy operation the energy of one lifting a trunk.
Annoyed, and a little amused, Eleanor watched him. All at once, she felt a catch 34 in her throat, was aware of a vague, uncomprehended fear—fear of him, of her loneliness with him, of something further and greater which she could not understand, did not try to understand. She wanted air; wanted to get away. When he turned about, she stood holding open the kitchen door, her eyes averted.
She felt that he was standing over her; she felt his smile as he looked down.
“You needn’t be in such a terrible hurry,” he said.
“They’ll be waiting for us on the lawn,” she forced herself to answer. It required all her energy to keep her voice clear and firm. Then she hurried ahead into the open air. Once in sight of the lawn party, she made herself walk beside him, even smile up at him.
“It’s just as I said—” he had gone back to his grumbling voice and his wholly presumptuous manner—“Either you don’t like me, or you’re sore on me because I’m working for your uncle.”