h, and you must dry them, Mr. Inglish, and be sure you make
them shine, for I am very fussy about my dishes."
And Eveley had to sit down in a big chair and rest, though she did not
feel like sitting down and hated resting--and look quietly on while Miss
Weldon fished each separate dish from the hot suds and held it out
playfully for Nolan to wipe. It made a long and laborious task of the
dish washing for Eveley, and she was quite worn out at its conclusion.
"Funny that some people can't do their plain duty without getting the
whole neighborhood mixed up in it," she thought resentfully.
At nine o'clock, came Timothy Baldwin. Miss Weldon met him at the window,
looked at him, half curiously, half fearfully, and after lifting her lips
for a fleeting kiss, backed quickly away from him into a remote corner.
Then Nolan, according to prearranged plan, suggested that he and Eveley
run down and put the car in the garage. "And if there is a moon, we may
go for a joy-ride, so don't expect us back too soon."
And as they rode he spoke so unconcernedly of Sally's smiles and curls
and pretty hands, that Eveley was restored to her original enthusiasm for
the campaign.
"Won't she be wild?" she chuckled, snuggling close against Nolan's side,
but never forgetting that she was mistress of the wheel. "Tim is going to
talk business all the time, and at ten-thirty he is going to say he must
hurry home to rest up for a hard day's work to-morrow. We are not to get
in until eleven, so she will be utterly bored to distraction. Isn't it
fun?"
They drove slowly, happily around the park, over the bridge and under the
bridge, around the eucalyptus knoll above the lights on the bay, and then
went down-town for ice-cream. At exactly eleven o'clock, Nolan took her
hands as she stood on the bottom step of the rustic stair.
"I can't say it is your duty to--be good to me--but I hope it will make
you happy. And by the rules of your own game, I have a right selfishly to
insist on your being always sweet and wonderful to me, and to me alone."
"Just what do you mean by that, Nolan?"
"Nothing, of course, but can't you use your imagination?"
"No, I can't. That is for brides and fiancees, not for unattached
working girls like me."
Then she ran on up the stairs, and Nolan went home.
True to arrangement, Tim had gone at ten-thirty, and Miss Weldon in a
soft negligee was sitting alone pensively, before the fire.
"Tim has changed," she sai
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