"Oh, I have not forgotten you!" said Sylvia, trying to speak pleasantly as she gave her hand. "But where in the world did you come from? And what are you doing in a milliner's shop?"
"I happened to see you through the window, so I just came in to say how do you do. There's no harm in my coming in, is there? You look all right. You're perfectly lovely."
His eyes were so bright that Sylvia felt oddly uncomfortable.
"Oh no," she answered, with an indifference she did not feel. "It's all right--I mean--I wish you would go away now, and come and see us at the hotel, if you like, by and by."
"Can't I stay and talk to you? Why can't I stay and talk to her, Miss Wimpole?" he asked, appealing to the latter. "I want to stay and talk to her. We are awfully old friends, you know; aren't we, Sylvia? You don't mind my calling you Sylvia, instead of Miss Sylvia, do you?"
"Oh no! I don't mind that!" Sylvia laughed a little. "But do please go away now!"
"Well--if I must--" he broke off, evidently reluctant to do as she wished. "I say," he began again with a sudden thought, "you like that hat you're trying on, don't you?"
Instantly Sylvia, who was a woman, though a very young one, turned to the glass again, settled the hat on her head and looked at herself critically.
"The ribbons stick up too much, don't they?" she asked, speaking to Miss Wimpole, and quite forgetting Archie Harmon's presence. "Yes, of course they do! The ribbons stick up too much," she repeated to the milliner in French.
A brilliant idea had struck Archie Harmon. He was already at the desk, where a young woman in black received the payments of passing customers with a grieved manner.