“Are you a bat that you can not see daylight facts?” she cried, turning upon him.
“I dare say I am.” And he looked very sober. “Yes, I suppose it is all right. Norris is one of those fellows who always knows what he wants, and just plods along until he gets it.”
“I said ‘row’,” Ellery remarked as he pushed the boat out from shore, “but I meant ‘loaf and invite the soul’. The sunlight is too delectable for anything strenuous.”
“But inviting the soul is always a solitary experience,” objected Madeline.
“Perhaps. But it is delightful to know that there is a sister soul also inviting herself close at hand. I hope yours will accept the invitation. ‘At home—the soul of Mr. Ellery Norris, to meet the soul of Miss Madeline Elton’.”
A soft flush rose over Madeline’s face and she devoted herself to the tiller ropes.
“P.S. Please come,” Ellery went on with a laugh. “R.S.V.P.”
“Aren’t you ‘flouting old ends’?” she smiled.
“I hoped I was flouting new beginnings,” he answered soberly, and he rowed languidly in a silence which Madeline rushed to fill.