He was inured to that treatment
and would not complain; but the others?
"Are you ready, Mrs. May?" Nick's voice inquired apologetically, outside
the door. "I hope you won't mind my bothering you, but I thought perhaps
your call had been forgotten, so----"
"_Can_ you do my blouse for me? Because I can't! And if you can't I shall
cry," moaned Angela in a voice of despair. She dashed the door open, and
stood on the threshold, in the sweet dawn, the river laughing at her
plight.
Nick did not laugh.
There was his Angel, in her short khaki skirt, and the thin cambric blouse
that would not button. Her face was flushed, her eyes sparkling with that
dress-rage than which no emotion known to woman is more fiercely
primitive. She was in an early morning "I don't care _what_ happens now!"
mood; but Nick cared.
In the first place, as his eyes took in the situation, he was overwhelmed
with a sense of vast responsibility. If he could not "do" the blouse, Mrs.
May had threatened to cry, and she looked as if she would keep her word.
So "do" the blouse he must, if the sky fell. And if he couldn't, it had
better fall!
Angela stood with her back to her victim, and the rosy light of sunrise
turned a small visible slip of white skin to pearl.
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