“Elsie!” cried the girl, half horrified, half mirthful. “You are forgetting yourself. You needn’t be quite so familiar, at any rate.”
“Eh! An’ would we be makkin’ a stranger of the laddie?” tranquilly replied the irrepressible Scotswoman.
Dick burst into a hearty roar.
“Quite right, Elsie,” he cried. “I believe we’re going to be jolly good friends, you and I.”
This was a character, he decided—a howling joke. He was almost sorry she was going back again directly, whereas when he had first heard the announcement he had been anything but sorry. Then the sound of voices outside told that the master of the place and the other guest had returned.
Old Hesketh greeted his niece affectionately, but undemonstratively, as was his way.
“This is Harley Greenoak,” he said. “You may have heard of him.”
The girl’s face lit up with interest.
“I should think so,” she said, as she put forth her hand. “Who hasn’t?”
“Oh, about nine hundred million people, I suppose,” tranquilly answered the subject of this implied exordium. “I don’t expect that leaves many more in the world.”