He sat silent for a few seconds, and she felt his hand shut more firmly on hers. Then he got up, and, pulling a chair to the opposite side of the table, said briskly:
“And now give me some tea. I haven’t had any lunch.”
“Oh, why not?” She blew her nose, tucked away her handkerchief, and began her operations on the tea-tray.
“I work very hard,” he returned. “You don’t know what at, do you? I’m a statistician.”
“What’s that?”
“I make reports on properties, on financial ventures, for the firm I’m with, Benson & Honaton. They’re brokers. When they are asked to underwrite a scheme—”
“Underwrite? I never heard that word.”
The boy laughed.
“You’ll hear it a good many times if our acquaintance continues.” Then more gravely, but quite parenthetically, he added: “If a firm puts up money for a business, they want to know all about it, of course. I tell them. I’ve just been doing a report this afternoon, a wonder; it’s what made me late. Shall I tell you about it?”
She nodded with the same eagerness with which ten years before she might have answered an inquiry as to whether he should tell her a fairy-story.