“Oh!” she cried again, this time in a tone balanced between relief and embarrassment. She tucked it back into her muff, and her eyes avoided his. He noted all this pantomime, and he was about to speak, when Mrs. Masters touched Kate on the shoulder. “My dear, you’re missing this!” she whispered.
Kate put all her attention upon Mr. Murphy and his burning story about the pulling of Candlestick. Mr. Murphy grew a little too broad; Mrs. Masters, as the easiest way 219 rid of him, rose and asked for her wraps. As Bertram assisted Kate, he saw her reach an anxious hand into her muff.
Outside, she contrived a loose shoe lace, so that she and Bertram fell behind. She did not approach the subject of the letter; that came up later and, of course, quite incidentally.
“Anything to confide in me to-night?” she began.
“Oh, nothing much. Gee, you can’t tell about her, can you? Say, are you sure about your system? She was with me last Tuesday when I punched the jaw off a man, and she hasn’t treated me so well since I knew her as she did after that. I was blame near opening on her again. Blame near. What’s the answer?”
“A passing mood, perhaps.”
“Well, I’d like to get her in that mood often.”
“And you’ll find that she’s furthest from you in those moods—it’s in them that she’s least herself.”
“This general girl proposition is a tough one,” commented Bertram. “All right. You know the dope.” 220
“You poor, perplexed boy!”