“Yes, and that is how I happened to find you.”
“Well, he told me to go the other way and I didn’t believe him, so I was coming along and saw Mr. Wells painting and I asked him the way. Then we got into conversation and he invited me to dinner. I didn’t have any, you know, except carrots and buns, and it was getting very late.”
“My sister has a propensity for flights like this,” said Nan a little more genially, as she turned to Mr. Wells. “I am very much obliged to you for looking after her.”
“Oh, the pleasure was all mine,” he returned. “We’ve been pretending, and have had a fine time.”
“Yes, we have been making believe I am a lady in distress,” Jack informed her sister. “I am Lady Diana Piccola. You didn’t say who you are. You must be Sir somebody.” She turned to her host.
“Sir Nota Bene, you remember,” he said with a smile and a bow and Nan’s smile broadened.
“So,” Jack went on, “he dressed me up. Don’t I look fine? And he was playing the violin to me as you came along.”
“A plain unvarnished tale, Miss Corner,” Mr. Wells asserted. “We have been playing, and I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in a coon’s age, as my friend Paul Woods would say.”
“Paul Woods? Not Dr. Paul from Virginia?” said Nan.
“The same, and a dear old chap he is.”