“Oh, I never meant to stay incog. I was only waiting—”
“What for?”
“My opportunity; and it never came.”
“What opportunity?”
“Well”—he leaned against the lintel, and he was smiling in that old whimsical way of his—“I suppose what I was waiting for was your getting into some sort of scrape.”
“You were hoping for that!” but while she denounced him, she, too, was smiling.
“Well, I had prophesied it. I suppose a prophet usually has a weakness for seeing his wisdom verified.”
She laughed out as light-heartedly as though the journey had been without care or cloud. “And you didn’t like your prophecy not to come true. Poor false prophet! No wonder you hid your face.”
“Yes, as for pretending—no, it isn’t any earthly use. The truth is, I expected that very first evening to step in at some psychological moment.”