The note crackled musically in Nelly’s hand.
“I don’t see why … Gee! I wish I could tell you what I think of you!”
“Do you know,” he said, “that’s exactly what the beaks—the masters, you know,—used to say to me at school.”
Nelly’s eyes shone in the light of the lamp.
“I’ve never met anyone like you before. I don’t know how …”
Freddie shuffled nervously. Being thanked always made him feel pretty rotten.
“Well, I think I’ll be popping,” he said. “Got to get back and dress and all that. Awfully glad to have seen you, and all that sort of rot.”
Nelly unlocked the door with her latchkey, and stood on the step.
“I’ll buy a fur-wrap,” she said, half to herself.
“Oh, the jolly old parrot! Rather! Well, cheerio!”
“Good-bye … You’ve been awfully good to me.”
“Oh, no,” said Freddie uncomfortably. “Any time you’re passing … !”
There was a little scurry of feet. Something warm and soft pressed for an instant against Freddie’s cheek, and, as he stumbled back, Nelly Bryant skipped up the steps and vanished through the door.
Freddie felt his cheek. He was aware of an odd mixture of embarrassment and exhilaration.
From the area below a slight cough sounded. Freddie turned sharply. A maid in a soiled cap, worn coquettishly over one ear, was gazing intently up through the railings. Their eyes met. Freddie turned a warm pink. It seemed to him that the maid had the air of one about to giggle.
“Damn!” said Freddie softly, and hurried off down the street. He wondered whether he had made a frightful ass of himself, spraying bank-notes all over the place like that to comparative strangers. Then a vision came to him of Nelly’s eyes as they had looked at him in the lamp-light, and he decided—no, absolutely not. Rummy as the gadget might appear, it had been the right thing to do. It was a binge of which he thoroughly approved. A good egg!
Jill, when Freddie and Nelly left the room, had seated herself on a low stool, and sat, looking thoughtfully into the fire. She was wondering if she had been mistaken in supposing that Uncle Chris was worried about something. This restlessness of his, this desire for movement, was strange in him. Hitherto he had been like a dear old cosy cat, revelling in the comfort which he had just denounced so eloquently. She watched him as he took up his favorite stand in front of the fire.