"Aren't the other" – she had to stop to clear her throat – "aren't the other men going to have napkins?"
"They wouldn't know what they were for."
His easy tone gave her a momentary sense of relief.
"They'd tie them on their hats, or make balls to throw around." He paused, but added: "It wouldn't look bad, though, would it? – to stand them up this way on all the tables."
She made no reply.
"What do you say?" He was looking at her. "Shall we do it?"
She nodded, and then dropped her eyes, angry with herself that she could not overcome her nervousness. There was another silence, and she broke it.
"It would look a good deal better," she said, "if you have time to do it. Max and I will put up the flags."
She had meant to say something that would give her a better control of the situation, but it sounded very flat and disagreeable – and she had not meant it to sound disagreeable. Indeed, as soon as the words were out, and she felt his eyes on her, and she knew that she was blushing, she was not sure that she had meant it at all. Perhaps that was why, when Bannon asked, in a low voice, "Would you rather Max would help you?" she turned away and answered in a cool tone that did not come from any one of her rushing, struggling thoughts, "If you don't mind."
She did not see the change that came over his face, the weary look that meant that the strain of a week had suddenly broken, but she did not need to see it, for she knew it was there. She heard him step down from the platform, and then she watched him as he walked down the aisle to meet Max, who was bringing up the flags. She wondered impatiently why Bannon did not call to him. Then he raised his head, but before a word had left his lips she was speaking, in a clear 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 time slipped by before Bannon could draw Max aside and grip his hand. Then they went at the napkins, and as they sat around the table, Hilda and Bannon, Pete and the waiters, folding them with rapid fingers, Bannon found opportunity to talk to her in a low voice, during the times when Pete was whistling, or was chaffing with the waiters. He told her, a few words at a time, of the new work Mr. MacBride had assigned to him, and in his enthusiasm he gave her a little idea of what it would mean to him, this opportunity to build an elevator the like of which had never been seen in the country before, and which would be watched by engineers from New York to San Francisco. He told her, too, something about the work, how it had been discovered that piles could be made of concrete and driven into the ground with a pile driver, and that neither beams nor girders – none of the timbers, in fact – were needed in this new construction. He was nearly through with it, and still he did not notice the uncertain expression in her eyes. It was not until she asked in a faltering undertone, "When are you going to begin?" that it came to him. And then he looked at her so long that Pete began to notice, and she had to touch his foot with hers under the table to get him to turn away. He had forgotten all about the vacation and the St. Lawrence trip.
Hilda saw, in her side glances, the gloomy expression that had settled upon his face; and she recovered her spirits first.
"It's all right," she whispered; "I don't care."
Max came up then, from a talk with James out on the stairway, and for a few moments there was no chance to reply. But after Bannon had caught Max's signals to step out of hearing of the others, and before he had risen, there was a moment when Pete's attention was drawn by one of the waiters, and he said: —
"Can you go with me – Monday?"
She looked frightened, and the blood rose in her cheeks so that she had to bend low over her pile of napkins.
"Will you?" He was pushing back his chair.
She did not look up, but her head nodded once with a little jerk.
"And you'll stay for the dinner, won't you – now?"
She nodded once more, and Bannon went to join Max.
Max made two false starts before he could get his words out in the proper order.
"Say," he finally said; "I thought maybe you wouldn't care if I told James. He thinks you're all right, you know. And he says, if you don't care, he'd like to say a little something about it when he makes his speech. Not much, you know – nothing you wouldn't like – he says it would tickle the boys right down to their corns."
Bannon looked around toward Hilda, and slowly shook his head.
"Max," he replied, "if anybody says a word about it at this dinner I'll break his head."
That should have been enough, but when James' turn came to speak, after nearly two hours of eating and singing and laughing and riotous good cheer, he began in a way that brought Bannon's eyes quickly upon him.
"Boys," he said, "we've worked hard together on this job, and one way and another we've come to understand what sort of a man our boss is. Ain't that right?"
A roar went up from hundreds of throats, and Hilda, sitting next to Bannon, blushed.
"We've thought we understood him pretty well, but I've just found out that we didn't know so much as we thought we did. He's been a pretty square friend to all of us, and I'm going to tell you something that'll give you a chance to show you're square friends of his, too."
He paused, and then was about to go on, leaning forward with both hands on the table, and looking straight down on the long rows of bearded faces, when he heard a slight noise behind him. A sudden laugh broke out, and before he could turn his head, a strong hand fell on each shoulder and he went back into his chair with a bump. Then he looked up, and saw Bannon standing over him. The boss was trying to speak, but he had to wait a full minute before he could make himself heard. He glanced around and saw the look of appeal in Hilda's eyes.
"Look here, boys," he said, when the room had grown quiet; "we aren't handing out any soft soap at this dinner. I won't let this man up till he promises to quit talking about me."
There was another burst of laughter, and James shouted something that nobody understood. Bannon looked down at him, and said quietly, and with a twinkle in his eye, but very firmly: —
"If you try that again, I'll throw you out of the window."
James protested, and was allowed to get up. Bannon slipped into his seat by Hilda.
"It's all right," he said in a low tone. "They won't know it now until we get out of here." His hand groped for hers under the table.
James was irrepressible. He was shouting quickly now, in order to get the words out before Bannon could reach him again.
"How about this, boys? Shall we stand it?"
"No!" was the reply in chorus.
"All right, then. Three cheers for Mr. Bannon. Now – Hip, hip – "
There was no stopping that response.