It removed any sentimental awkwardness which might have attached to the
episode, and yet the girl rather resented its being so completely
reduced to terms of farce-comedy. When the men rose, after breakfast,
to go down into the town, she, too, declared her intention of
accompanying them, as though it were the expected thing. She crossed
the lawn at Steve's side, ahead of her father and Caleb, with Miss
Sarah watching from the door. Both men walked for a time in silence,
their eyes upon the slender figure in short skirt and woolly sweater
beside the taller one in blue flannel before them. And, as usual,
Allison was the first to speak.
"Now I know what you meant when you referred to that trip up the west
branch, Cal," he said. "And you were right. It does take stuff to
make that sort of a gentleman. Isn't there anything more to tell me?
I am truly interested, Cal."
So Caleb told him then of "Old Tom's" tin box. And while he was
explaining the man and girl ahead, all in one breath, skipped back to
that day-before-yesterday now many years gone. There was a quality of
camaraderie in the girl's half-parted lips and eager impulsiveness of
tongue that morning that was entirely boyish. Her very unconsciousness
of self intensified and emphasized it for the man whose steady gaze
rarely left her warm face. And more than once she caught herself
watching for his slow smile to spread and crinkle the corners of his
eyelids; once or twice, in a little lull, she found time to wonder at
that new and quite frivolous mood of hers.
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