She gave her work a last, lingering glance and raised her
eyes slowly as if politeness warred with disinclination, Leff was
standing before her, scowling at her as at an object of especial
enmity. He carried a small tin pail full of wild strawberries. She
saw it at once, but forebore looking at it, keeping her eyes on his
face, up which the red color ran.
"Oh, Leff," she said with careless amiability, "so you've got back."
Leff grunted an agreeing monosyllable and moved the strawberries to a
position where they intruded into the conversation like a punctuation
mark in the middle of a sentence. Her glance dropped to the pail, and
she looked at it saying nothing, amused to thus tease him and covertly
note his hopeless and impotent writhings.
He thrust the pail almost against her knee and she was forced to say:
"What fine strawberries, a whole pail full. Can I have one?"
He nodded and she made a careful choice, giving the pail a little shake
to stir its contents. Leff glared at the top of her head where her
hair was twisted into a rough knot.
"Thank you," she said. "I've found a beauty.
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