"It's what any silly girl would do!" she admitted to herself disgustedly.
Well, there was his rap on the foolish imitation Warwick knocker. Kate flung wide the door. He stood in the dim light of the hall, hesitating, it would seem, to enter upon the evening's drama. Tall, graceful as always, with a magnetic force behind his languor, he impressed Kate as a man whom few women would be able to resist; whom, indeed, it was a sort of folly, perhaps even an impiety, to cast out of one's life.
"Kate!" he said, "Kate!" The whole challenge of love was in the accent.
But she held him off with the first method of opposition she could devise.
"My name!" she admitted gayly. "I used to think I didn't like it, but I do."
He came in and swung to the door behind him, flinging his coat and hat upon a chair.
"Do you mean you like to hear me say it?" he demanded. He stood by the fire which had begun to leap and crackle, drawing off his gloves with a decisive gesture.
She saw that she was not going to be able to put him off. The hour had struck. So she faced him bravely.
"Sit down, Ray," she said.
He looked at her a moment as if measuring the value of this courtesy.