"We came here three years ago. Here's a bench. Now tell it to me!"
But Pringle stood beside and looked down at her without speech, with a smile unexpected from a face so lean, so brown, so year-bitten and iron-hard—a smile which happily changed that face, and softened it.
The girl's eyes danced at him.
"I'm so glad you've come, John Wesley! Good old Wes!"
"So I am—both those little things. Six years!" he said slowly. "Dear me—dear both of us! That will make you twenty-five. You don't look a day over twenty-four! But you're still Stella Vorhis?"
She met his gaze gravely; then her lids drooped and a wave of red flushed her face.
"I am Stella Vorhis—yet."
"Meaning—for a little while yet?"
"Meaning, for a little while yet. That will come later, John Wesley. Oh, I'll tell you, but not just now. You tell about John Wesley, first—and remember, anything you say may be used against you. Where have you been? Were you dead? Why didn't you write? Has the world used you well? Sit down, Mr. John Wesley Also-Ran Pringle, and give an account of yourself!"
He sat beside her: she laid her hand across his gnarled brown fingers with an unconscious caress.