The question, together with the fact that he had dared used her first name, brought her up with a start.
"Like you?" she repeated in her most conventional tone, "Why, of course. Whatever made you think I didn't?"
"I didn't think that. But—do you like me enough to let me come to see you when you come back?"
Now, a romantically wounded hero receiving favors in a hospital is one thing, and an unknown discharged soldier asking them is quite another. The very thought of Quinby Graham presenting himself as a caller, and the comments that would follow made Eleanor shy away from the subject in alarm.
"Oh, you'll be on the other side of the world by the time I get back," she said lightly.
"Not me. Not if there's a chance of seeing you again."
A momentary diversion followed, during which Eleanor fancied there was something wrong with the radiator and expatiated at length on her preference for air-cooled cars.
Quin listened patiently. A gentleman more versed in social subtleties would have accepted the hint and said no more. But he was still laboring under the error that language was invented to reveal rather than to conceal thought.
"You didn't answer my question," he said, when Eleanor paused for breath.
"What question?"