He made no reply. He could not take his eyes from her. In his delight at seeing her again he had nothing to say.
"Well?" she asked, when she thought he had stared enough.
"Well," he answered, "I couldn't help it. You are prettier than ever."
Again a flush flitted across her face, fainter this time, and fleeting sooner.
"That's a very direct compliment, don't you think?" she retorted, withdrawing her hand, which he had kept clasped in his own. "And you are looking well, too. Your life out West there is good for you. I don't wonder you prefer it to this noisy old New York of ours."
"But I don't prefer it," he declared, hotly. "A week of New York is worth a year of the whole wide West put together. And I've done with all that now. I've come back here for good now—"
"Have you really?" she responded, as he hesitated, having so much to say that he did not know where to begin.
"I got back this morning," he explained, "and I was coming to see you this afternoon. I've—I've so many things to tell you."
She looked at him for a second, and then she glanced away, as she said: "You will have to talk very fast, then, if you have so many things to tell me. We are going to sail on Tuesday morning, and this afternoon we are off to Tuxedo for over Sunday."
"You sail on Tuesday?" he cried, despairingly. "Just when I have come back on purpose to see you again!"