a little
while, to give her time to reach the street and remember anything that
might bring her back. Then, very quietly, she took off her own pinafore,
and stole across the room and listened at Gaga's door. She could hear
nothing. Sharply, she tapped, and listened again.

"Come in!" said a voice.

Sally opened the door, standing there in her grey dress, with her hair
brilliant, and her whole face smiling. And Gaga, looking up from his
work, saw her thus as a vision, a happy vision for tired eyes. He smiled
in return and Sally advanced, without any shyness or assumed shyness,
into the room.

"Wondered if you were here," she said cheerfully. "Everybody else has
gone. Miss Summers and all. I'm working on something. Oo, hasn't it been
a day! The girls all had the fidgets. I've been quite ill all day."

"Ill?" demanded Gaga. "Not ... not really ill? Oh, I'm.... I'm so sorry.
Poor Sally!"

"Headache," mentioned Sally, rather lugubriously, so as to encourage his
pity.

"Headache? Oh, poor little girl! So have I."

Sally gave a little laugh. It contained all sorts of provocative shades
of meaning.

"Hn," she said. "Funny us _both_ having headaches. You still got yours?"

Gaga nodded. She went farther towards him, hesitated, and then still
nearer.

"Very bad," groaned Gaga, and Sally could see the heaviness round his
eyes.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a soft voice. Then: "My hand's cool. Shall
I?" She put her hand to Gaga's forehead, and felt how burning it was.
She felt him grow rigid at the contact, and saw his face betray his
sensitiveness to her touch. Sally's smile deepened in mischief. She was
playing with him, playing with fire and Gaga at the same time, and only
lightly amused at her employment. But she was still apart from him,
standing erect, with her right arm outstretched. There was not yet any
intimacy in her attitude. Nor could she see his face very plainly
without peeping over her arm.

"That better?" she asked.

"Beautiful." Gaga tried to move his head. Failing, he put his hand to
her wrist, pulled it down, and pressed his lips to her fingers.

"Now, now!" warned Sally. "I'm curing your headache."

Mildly he permitted the withdrawal of her hand and its replacement upon
his brow. But in a moment Sally, perhaps growing more daring, exchanged
her right hand for her left; and this meant approaching Gaga more
closely, and the partial encirclement of his head with her arm. She was
quite near him,