Laverick, sitting with Zoe at dinner, caught his companion looking around the restaurant with an expression in her face which he did not wholly understand.
"Something is the matter with you this evening, Zoe," he said anxiously. "Tell me what it is. You don't like this place, perhaps?"
"Of course I do."
"It is your dinner, then, or me?" he persisted. "Come, out with it. Haven't we promised to tell each other the truth always?"
The pink color came slowly into her cheeks. Her eyes, raised for a moment to his, were almost reproachful.
"You know very well that it is not anything to do with you," she whispered. "You are too kind to me all the time. Only," she went on, a little hesitatingly, "don't you realize--can't you see how differently most of the girls here are dressed? I don't mind so much for myself--but you--you have so many friends. You keep on seeing people whom you know. I am afraid they will think that I ought not to be here."
He looked at her in surprise, mingled, perhaps, with compunction. For the first time he appreciated the actual shabbiness of her clothes. Everything about her was so neat--pathetically neat, as it seemed to him in one illuminating moment of realization. The white linen collar, notwithstanding its frayed edges, was spotlessly clean. The black bow was carefully tied to conceal its worn parts. Her gloves had been stitched a good many times. Her gown, although it was tidy, was old-fashioned and had distinctly seen its best days. He suddenly recognized the effort--the almost despairing effort--which her toilette had cost her.
"I don't think that men notice these things," he said simply. "To me you look just as you should look--and I wouldn't change places with any other man in the room for a great deal."
Her eyes were soft--perilously soft--as she looked at him with uplifted eyebrows and a faint smile struggling at the corners of her lips. A wave of tenderness crept into his heart. What a brave little child she was!
"You will quite spoil me if you make such nice speeches," she murmured.
"Anyhow," he went on, speaking with decision, "so long as you feel like that, you are going to have a new gown--or two--and a new hat, and you are going to have them at once. They are going to be bought with your brother's money, mind. Shall I come shopping with you?"
She shook her head.
"Mind, it is partly for your sake that I give in," she said. "It would be lovely to have you come, but you would spend far too much money. You really mean it all?"