"Oh no, I wouldn't mind in the least. But how about her?"
"I'll call out to her."
The visitor could hear him opening the door that led into the passage, then his voice—
"Sally!" The clattering of feet above reached them, the hurried opening of another door, as though the person called for had been waiting eagerly for the summons.
"I'm coming," she replied. Her heels tapped loudly—the quick successive knockings as on a cobbler's last—as she ran down the stairs.
"Mr. Devenish has come in to ask me to dinner, Sally," he said, before she reached the bottom. "He's going to take you instead; I can't go, of course."
The footsteps stopped.
Devenish, within the room, half-closed his eyes, bent his head in an attitude of amused attention. He heard many things in the silence that followed.
"Had I better go and dress?" she asked, after the moment's pause.
"Oh no, he's not changed. He's in here; come along."