“Somehow,” the girl reflected—“I suppose it is because I have just come from the art classes and the museums of New York—I feel as though that were the first real thing I have ever seen in my life.”
CHAPTER III
“Well,” Claire exclaimed, laughing at Gregory Ballaston across the table, “how have you enjoyed your dinner?”
“Immensely,” he answered, with enthusiasm.
“Have you ever dined more strangely?”
“I don’t think I have,” he confessed. “It was most frightfully kind of your uncle to ask me. I was never so surprised in my life.”
“Nor I,” she admitted candidly. “To tell you the truth, when we all came together in the warehouse this afternoon, it seemed to me from his manner that you were not particularly good friends, and I was afraid he was going to hurry me off without a word. Then your intense curiosity to have another look at that Image——”
“Entirely assumed,” he interrupted. “I wanted a chance to be introduced to you.”
“Of course that wasn’t in the least obvious,” she laughed. “Anyhow, even then I never dreamed of this. It was just when you were going that he asked your name again and seemed so interested. Do you realise that he must know something about you or your family?”
“I wondered,” Gregory admitted.