This time Ballard's smile was affectionately cynical.
"I didn't suppose you ever forgot yourself so far as to admit that there was any America west of the Alleghany Mountains."
Miss Elsa's laugh was one of her most effective weapons. Ballard was made to feel that he had laid himself open at some vulnerable point, without knowing how or why.
"Dear me!" she protested. "How long does it take you to really get acquainted with people?" Then with reproachful demureness: "The man has been waiting for five full minutes to take your dinner order."
One of Ballard's gifts was pertinacity; and after he had told the waiter what to bring, he returned to her question.
"It is taking me long enough to get acquainted with you," he ventured. "It will be two years next Tuesday since we first met at the Herbert Lassleys', and you have been delightfully good to me, and even chummy with me—when you felt like it. Yet do you know you have never once gone back of your college days in speaking of yourself? I don't know to this blessed moment whether you ever had any girlhood; and that being the case——"
"Oh, spare me!" she begged, in well-counterfeited dismay. "One would think——"
"One would not think anything of you that he ought not to think," he broke in gravely; adding: "We are a long way past the Alleghanies now, and I am glad you are aware of an America somewhat broader than it is long. Do I know any of your sight-seers, besides Mrs. Van Bryck?"
"I don't know; I'll list them for you," she offered. "There are Major Blacklock, United States Engineers, retired, who always says, 'H'm—ha!' before he contradicts you; the major's nieces, Madge and Margery Cantrell—the idea of splitting one name for two girls in the same family!—and the major's son, Jerry, most hopeful when he is pitted against other young savages on the football field. All strangers, so far?"
Ballard nodded, and she went on.