ar tone that Max could
plainly hear. She was surprised at herself. She had not meant to say a
word, but out it came; and she was conscious of a tightening of her
nerves and a defiant gladness that at last her real thoughts had found
an outlet.

"Max," she said, "won't you go out and get enough napkins to put at all
the places? You'll have to hurry."

Bannon was slow in turning; when he did there was a peculiar expression
on his face.

"Hold on, there," called a waiter. "There ain't time to fold them."

"Yes, there is," said Bannon, shortly. "The boys can wait."

"But dinner's most ready now."

"Then I guess dinner's got to wait, too."

The waiter looked disgusted, and Max hurried out. Bannon gathered up the
flags and came to the platform. Hilda could not face him. For an instant
she had a wild impulse to follow Max. She finally turned her back on
Bannon and leaned her elbows on a chair, looking over the wall for a
good place to hang the flags. She was going to begin talking about it as
soon as he should reach the platform. The words were all ready, but now
he was opposite her, looking across the table with the red and white
bundle in his arms, and she had not said it. Her eyes were fixed on a
napkin, studying out the curious Japanese design. She could hear his
breathing and her own. She let her eyes rise as high as the flags, then
slowly, higher and higher, until they met his, fluttered, and dropped.
But the glance was enough. She could not have resisted the look in his
eyes.

"Did you mean it?" he asked, almost breathlessly. "Did you mean the
whole thing?"

She could not reply. She glanced around to see if the waiters could
hear.

"Can't you tell me?" he was saying. "It's been a week."

She gazed at the napkin until it grew misty and indistinct. Then she
slowly nodded.

A waiter was almost within hearing. Bannon stood looking at her,
heedless of everything but that she was there before him, that her eyes
were trying to peep up at him through the locks of red gold hair that
had strayed over her forehead.

"Please"--she whispered--"please put them up."

And so they set to work. He got the ladder and she told him what to do.
Her directions were not always clear, but that mattered little, for he
could not have followed them. Somehow the flags went up, and if the
effect was little better than Max's attempt had been, no one spoke of
it.

Pete and Max came in together soon with the napkins, and a little t