THE AMATEUR LOVER
breakfast table. All through the tortuous little meal she sat in absolute tongue-tied gravity, carving her omelet into a hundred infinitesimal pieces and sip ping like a professional coffee-taster at Drew's over- rank concoction. Only once did her solemn face lighten with an inspirational flash that made Drew s heart jump. Then,"Oh, Drew," she exclaimed, " do you think you could go out to the house to-day and see if they fed the lamb?"
" No, I don't," said Drew bluntly, and poured himself out his fifth cup of coffee.
After breakfast, all the time that he was shav ing, she came and sat on the edge of a table and watched him with the same maddening gravity, and when he finally started off for his office she followed him down the whole length of his little hallway. "I like my cave !" she volunteered with sudden so ciability, and then with a great, pink-flushing wave of consciousness she lifted up her face to him and stammered, "Do I kiss you good-by?"
Drew shook his head and laughed. "No," he said, "you don't even have to do that; I'm not much of a kisser," and turned abruptly and grabbed at the handle of the door.
But before he had crossed the threshold she reached out and pulled him back for a moment, and he had to stoop down very far to hear what she
wanted to tell him. " It's nothing much, Drew,
229
