Now laughter is certainly the best beginning of a friendship, and Jack hailed the omen.
“It seems fated that I should see you keeping off a wet dog,” he said. “Is not the subject forced on me?”
“Indeed it is,” said Jeannie, who had not meant to allude to it at all, and hoped that he would not. But her first exclamation had been quite voluntary, not in her power to check.
“If I had known it was you,” he went on, not even explaining that he alluded to the picture, “of course I should never have done it. And if any one had told me before I came here to-day that it was you, I doubt if I should have come. Anyhow, I should be apologizing now. But twice! It is beyond my control. I think I won’t even apologize.”
“It would be an impertinence to apologize for so clear a dealing of Providence,” said Jeannie. “I, too, was rather uneasy about this moment; I was afraid you might be awkward, and make me so. But certainly you are not. Am I?”
Jack laughed.
“I had not noticed it,” he said. “And here’s the author of it all come to dry himself against me.”
“Toby, come here at once,” said Jeannie.
“You said that before, too,” remarked Jack.