Page:Booth Tarkington - Alice Adams.djvu/249

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ALICE ADAMS
239

her, this prettiness appeared to increase. He felt that he could not look at her enough: his gaze followed the fluttering of the graceful hands in almost continual gesture as she talked; then lifted happily to the vivacious face again. She charmed him.

After her abrupt pause, she sighed, then looked at him with her eyebrows lifted in a comedy appeal. "You haven't said you wouldn't give Henrietta the chance," she said, in the softest voice that can still have a little laugh running in it.

He was puzzled. "Give Henrietta the chance?"

"You know! You'll let me keep on being unfair, won't you? Not give the other girls a chance to get even?"

He promised, heartily.