Page:Jackson Gregory--joyous trouble maker.djvu/47

Rh She rang for her maid. Her cheeks were cool now, her eyes on the verge of a smile.

"Tell Bradford to inform Mr. Steele that I shall be glad to talk with him in the office," she said. "That is, of course, if he still cares to speak with me."

The maid departed with customary speed, noting and wondering at the change a few moments had worked in her mistress. Beatrice, her eyes at last unmistakably smiling, her lips curving for the first time in some hours to lines which were not scorn's, rose and went to her glass. Her hands she lifted swiftly to her hair, fluffing it a little, winding a bronze curl about a forefinger. She was still smiling when, in answer to her maid's assurance that Mr. Steele had been shown to her office, she left her room.

She kept him waiting a moment, not too long so as to hint at premeditated intention but merely a sufficient time to suggest that she would come as soon as she finished some trifling matter which detained her. He looked at her curiously as she came in. She saw the expression which leaped into his eyes … he did not seek to hide it … and paid him back for it with a quick smile.

"There were two dimples," said Steele, nodding approval. "I thought so."

She had planned to remain standing during a brief interview. But he had come a step closer and his great bulk towering above her gave her a certain troublesome feeling of helplessness which she knew would not do at all. So, swiftly changing her campaign like any