She was, he thought, such a very amiable young girl, ready to talk of anything, happy to listen to any scrap of news or anecdote relating to mutual acquaintances. Her appreciation was so very eager and generous. He never saw in her liveliness a reaction against the boredom she had endured immediately before his arrival; instead, he read special regard.

He was always equipped with compliments. They sprang readily to his mind and lips because he could not see her without thinking how pretty she was, how fragrant she smelled, how delightful it would be to touch her in more ways than civil manners allowed. He was able to listen to her chatter about anything, or rather, he looked and did not listen more than to register key words, if there were any, and to murmur whenever she paused, “I do declare!” or “By my soul!”

Of course, sometimes Edna was there, and sometimes even Bruce, and he talked to them, only now and then letting his eyes veer from them to Annabel while she sat back with a secret smile, enjoying his performance and by the smile letting him know she knew he would have preferred finding her alone.

Annabel progressed from simple flirting, in which she felt competent and perfectly safe, to chaffing Leon in a familiar way she would not have dared had anyone else been present. She liked to flirt; it gave her a feeling of importance and even power. She meant no harm; she merely found it pleasant. And he was there and agreeable, the first grown man who had noticed her as anything but a child. Now and then she gave him a small commission to execute for her in town, for there was little casual traffic between Oaks and Highboro during those busy days, and sometimes when he brought the card of embroidery thread she had needed, he added a little present to it to surprise her.

Most recently, he had brought a tiny bottle of French perfume, and when she saw it, her eyes got large, and she said, “Oh!” as if in the grip of the tenderest passion, and then she held it out firmly for him to take back. “I mustn’t. You let Miss Sarah have it.”

Leon blushed. “I’m sure she buys for herself whatever she wants in this sort of line,” he said.

“I know Granny would tell me no, but all the same I’m tempted.”

“Keep it, and don’t tell your grandmother. You don’t tell her everything, anyway, do you?”

“No.” She laughed and held the bottle tighter in her hand. “I shall do as you suggest, and I shall open it only when I am alone and use a drop of it before I go to bed at night to make me think of pretty things and sleep happy.”

Imagining the scene, Leon squirmed in his chair.