“Miss Waddington is wanted at the telephone,” she announced. 114
Eleanor, when she saw that her visitor had no intention of rejoining the party, commanded him to smoke. He rolled a cigarette, Western fashion, from powdered tobacco and brown paper, and disposed himself in the window-seat, one leg drawn up under him, his big shoulders settled comfortably against the wall. Eleanor began to talk fluently, superficially, with animation. She felt from the first that he was throwing himself against her barriers, trying to reach at once the deeper stages of acquaintance. His direct look seemed both to plead and to command. She outwitted two or three flanking movements before he took advantage of a pause and charged her entrenchments direct.
“I’ve said it before, but I’m going to keep on. You are pretty.”
“Thank you,” she replied; and smiled—mainly at the ingenuousness of this, although partly at the contrast between her present view of him and that old memory.
“Oh, it never seems to bother you when I say that,” went on Bert Chester, bending his rather large and compelling black-brown eyes upon her. “Some girls would get sore, and some would like it; you never pay any attention. 115 That’s one of the ways you’re different.”
(“Heavens—is he making love already—he is sudden!” thought Eleanor with amusement.)
“You are, you know. I picked you for different the first time I saw you. I wondered then if you were beautiful—I always knew you had nice eyes—and it isn’t so much that you’ve changed, as that the longer a man looks at you the prettier you are.”
“Shall we discuss other things than me?” asked Eleanor.
“Why shouldn’t we talk about you? I’ve never had a chance before—just think, it’s the first time ever I saw you alone—even that time on the ranch a bull chaperoned us!” This minor joke, like every play of his spirit, gained a hundred times its own inherent effect by sifting through his personality. She smiled back to his smile at the boyish ripples about his mouth and eyes.
“You see, it means a lot when a girl sticks in a man’s mind that way,” he continued. “Why, I’ve carried you around right through my Senior year at college and my first year out. So of course, it must mean something.” 116