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.