Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/228

218 was no caress to him, although it did send the blood surging through her. He would have done the same to a boy or a child.

Chadwick Booth fully intended to keep this amazing little discovery of his just what his words and manner portended—a pal, a harmless amusement for hot, summer evenings when everybody was away from town; when the echoing rooms of the uninhabited Back Bay house, in the front of which his office was located, offered no consolation; and the summer places of his friends, where he might have been received for over a Sunday only the tamest sort of entertainment.

In her way, Reba was quite as much of a novelty to Chadwick Booth as he to her. For after their first dinner-party alone, he discovered that she was as genuinely fresh a bit of femininity as he had ever run across. Most of the women of his acquaintance were so terribly used-to-everything, and worldly-wise. To those of his own social circle the pleasures of dining-out, and of brilliant ballrooms, were old and drained pleasures. To those outside his social circle, with whom he sometimes sought to amuse himself, the joys of restaurants and dance-halls appeared equally tasteless. Not until Chadwick Booth began selecting delectable dishes for Becky, planning little surprises in the way of an unexpected rose beside her plate, or package of sweets, did he know what joy (harmless joy, too, he told himself) there could be in giving a good time to a girl—a woman, that is, for Reba did not give the impression of girlhood, shy and eager as she was. There was a ripeness about her that did not require her confession to her twenty-eight years to assure Chadwick Booth that he was playing the part of no cradle-snatcher.