"Well met," said a voice behind her. "But what a hurry you are in, to be sure! Where are you off to, now?"
She looked round and saw Paul Wilton, smiling unaffectedly at her in a way that recalled the old days at Ivingdon. Perhaps, the fine day had influenced him too; certainly, he had not been starving for a fortnight, nor would he have seen the humour of it, probably, if he had. But these reflections did not occur to Katharine; it was enough for her that he looked more pleased than usual, and that his manner had lost its constraint.
"I am not going anywhere. The spring has got into my head, that's all; and I felt obliged to walk. Besides, it is the first day of my first holidays!" and she laughed out joyously.
"Yes? You look very jolly over it, any way. Have you lunched yet?"
"Yes,—I mean, no. I don't want any lunch to-day," she said hastily. "Don't let us talk about lunch; it spoils it so."
"But, my dear child, I really must talk about it. I have had nothing to eat since supper last night, and I am going to have some lunch now. You've got to come along, too, so don't make any more objections. I'm not a healthy young woman like you, and I can't eat my three courses at breakfast, and then fast until it is time to spoil my digestion by afternoon tea. Where shall we go? Suppose you stop chuckling for a moment and make a suggestion."
"But I don't know any places, and I don't really want anything to eat," protested Katharine. She would not have been so independent, if she had been a little less hungry. "There's a confectioner's along here, that always looks rather nice," she added, remembering one she had often passed lately with a lingering look, at its attractive contents.
"Nonsense! that's only a shop. Have you ever been in here?"
Katharine confessed that she had never lunched at a restaurant before; and the savoury smell that greeted them as they entered reminded her how very hungry she was, and drove away her last impulse to object.
"Never? Why, what has Ted been up to? Now, you have got to say what you like; this is your merrymaking, you know, because it is the first day of the holidays."