Instantly the Colonel turned and looked down at her, startled. Then: "A woman!" he exclaimed, beneath his breath. "A woman at my knot-hole!"
Firmly determined to maintain his right he sternly approached her.
"Madam!" he exclaimed, as incensed by her usurpation of the knot-hole as he would have been, at ordinary times, by theft of watch or pocket-book, and tapped her lightly on the shoulder.
She shrank back from the knot-hole, startled and indignant. "Sir!" she cried, and then, as he recognized her, she turned and saw who had addressed her.
"Colonel Sandusky Doolittle!" she exclaimed, amazed.
"Miss Alathea Layson!" cried the Colonel, equally amazed, at first, but winding up his gesture of surprise with a low and courtly bow.
"Colonel, what are you doing here?"
"Madame," he countered, "what are you doing here?"
Miss Alathea's dignity forsook her. "Colonel," she confessed, "I couldn't wait to hear the result."
"No more could I," he somewhat sheepishly admitted.