"Then are you expecting someone?"
He looked up at her, smiled, opened the door of his room, and bid her pass through.
"And is all this," said he, "because I paused a moment when you asked me if I was glad to see you?"
She seated herself easily in the chair to which she was accustomed. She began drawing the pins out of her hat, as a woman does when she feels at home. When the hat was free of her heaps of brown-red hair, she threw it carelessly upon the table, shook her head and lifted the hair from her forehead with her fingers. And John stood by with a smile, thinking how the faintest shadow of a word of question would make that hat fly back on to the head of brown-red hair, the hat-pins pierce the crown with hasty pride, and the little purse that lay upon the table alongside of them be clutched in an eager, scornful hand, as she would rise, full of dignity, to depart.
He let the smile fade away, and repeated his question.
"Yes," she said. "I thought when you didn't answer at once that you weren't very keen to see me."
"And if I said I wasn't very keen, would you go at once?"
Her eyebrows lifted high. She made a movement in her chair. One hand was already beginning to stretch out for the grey velvet hat.
"Like a shot!" she answered.
He nodded his head.