“I’m afraid things won’t be very appetizing,” she told him; “they’ve waited so long. But I’ll cook the steak——”

He had gone on, and was beyond the sound of her voice. She opened the fat parcel which he had deposited on the kitchen table. She wondered a bit at its size. But Baldy had a way of bringing home unexpected bargains—a dozen boxes of crackers—unwieldy pounds of coffee.

But this was neither crackers nor coffee. The box which was revealed bore the name of a fashionable florist. Within were violets—single ones—set off by one perfect rose and tied with a silver ribbon.

Jane gasped—then she went to the door and called:

[22]“Baldy, where’s the steak?”

[22]

He came to the top of the stairs. “Great guns,” he said, “I forgot it!”

Then he saw the violets in her hands, laughed and came down a step or two. “I sold a loaf of bread and bought—white hyacinths——”

“They’re heavenly!” Her glance swept up to him. “Peace offering?”

There were gay sparks in his eyes. “We’ll call it that.”

She blew a kiss to him from the tips of her fingers. “They are perfectly sweet. And we can have an omelette. Only if we eat any more eggs, we’ll be flapping our wings.”

“I don’t care what we have. I am so hungry I could eat a house.” He went back up the stairs, laughing.

Jane, breaking eggs into a bowl, meditated on the nonchalance of men. She meditated, too, on the mystery of Baldy’s mood. The flowers were evidence of high exaltation. He did not often lend himself to such extravagance.

He came down presently and helped carry in the belated dinner. The potatoes lay like withered leaves in a silver dish, the cornbread was a wrinkled wreck, the pudding a travesty. Only Jane’s omelette and a lettuce salad had escaped the blight of delay.

Then, too, there was Philomel, singing. Jane drew a cup of coffee, hot and strong, and set it at[23] her brother’s place. The violets were in the center of the table, the cats purring on the hearth.

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