Part 2 (1/2)
”Good afternoon, Miss Sprunt.” He pushed the greeting toward her. ”May I hope that you will accept these?”
”Oh, Mr. Chase, aren't you good?” The very quality of her voice was suddenly different, like the softening of a violin note when you mute the strings.
He drew his chair up to the table with the quiet satisfaction of a man ready for a well-merited meal.
”You and violets are inseparable in my mind, Miss Sprunt, because you both suggest the spring.”
She laughed in low, rich tones, and her s.h.i.+rtwaist rose and fell rapidly from short breathing.
”Why,” she said, ”that's the very nicest thing any one ever said to me!”
His hand, long-fingered and virile, drooped over the edge of the bowl into the warm water; he leaned forward with his chest against the line of the table.
”What do you mean, Miss Sprunt?”
She took his dripping hand from the water and dried each finger separately.
”If you had been doing high pink finishes for three years you'd know the difference when a dull white came along--I--I mean, I--”
He smoothed away her embarra.s.sment with a raillery: ”By your polish shall ye be known.”
”Yes,” she replied, with more seriousness than banter; ”that's exactly what I mean. I'm not used to men whose polish extends beyond their finger-nails.”
She worked with her head bent low, and he regarded the s.h.i.+ning coils of her hair.
”How droll you are!” he said.
She pushed back the half-moons of his fingers with an orange stick dipped in cold-cream.
”You ought to watch your cuticle, Mr. Chase, and be more regular about the manicures. Your hands are more delicate than most.”
He started.
”Of course I should pay more attention to them, but I'm pretty busy and--and--”
”Of course I understand manicures are expensive luxuries these days.”
”Yes.”
”I have become so accustomed to hotel trade that I forgot that some hands may be earning salaries instead of drawing incomes.”
Her manner was un.o.btrusive, and he laughed quietly.
”You are quite a student of types, Miss Sprunt.”
”Wouldn't I have to be, Mr. Chase, me doing as many as a hundred fingers a day, and something different coming with each ten of them?”
”You are delightful,” he said, letting his amused eyes rest upon her; ”but I fear you've mysterious methods of divination.”
”Oh, I don't know,” she said, airily. ”Just take you, for example. I don't need an X-ray to see that there isn't a Fifth Avenue tailor sign st.i.tched inside your coat. It doesn't take any mind-reader to know that you come in from the Sixth Avenue entrance and not from the elevator.