"Late? It isn't late, dear. I said I couldn't come before eight, didn't I? Well, it's eight, isn't it?"
"It's nearly seventy minutes past eight, sir. I've been waiting and watching the hands on the clock for just sixty minutes."
"I never saw such a perfect crank about keeping time as that grandfatherly clock of yours. It hasn't skipped a second in two centuries, I'll swear. You see, I was playing off the odd game with Tom Ditton."
He dropped lazily into a big arm-chair, drove his hands into his pockets and stretched out his long legs toward the grate.
"You might have come at eight, Hugh, on this night if no other. You knew what important things we have to consider." Miss Vernon, tall and graceful, stood before him with her back to the fire. She was exceedingly pretty, this girl whom Hugh had kissed.
"I'm awfully sorry, Grace; but you know how it is when a fellow's in a close, hard game--especially with a blow-hard like Tom Ditton."
"If I forgive you again, I'm afraid you'll prove a begging husband."
"Never! Deliver me from a begging husband. I shall assert all kinds of authority in my house, Miss Vernon, and you'll be in a constant state of beggary yourself. You'll have to beg me to get up in the morning, beg me to come home early every night, beg me to swear off divers things, beg me to go to church, beg me to buy new hats for you, beg me to eat things you cook, beg me to--"
"I suppose I shall even have to beg you to kiss me," she cried.
"Not at all. That is one thing I'll beg of you. Lean over here, do, and kiss me, please," he said invitingly.