"That window behind you is open at the top. You may feel a draft; I'll shut it."
In his voice she caught the note which a woman never misses, and her mind went back to her room at college where the girls used to gather in the evenings and hold classes which were strictly outside the regular course.
"It's simply pathetic," one of the girls had once remarked, "but nearly every man you meet makes love the same way. Talk about sausage for breakfast every morning in the year. It's worse than that!
"First you catch it in their eye and in their voice: 'Are you sure you're comfortable?' 'Are you sure you're warm enough?' 'Are you sure you don't feel a draft?' That's Chapter One.
"Then they try to touch you—absent-mindedly putting their arms along the back of your chair, or taking your elbow to keep you from falling when you have to cross a doorsill or a curb-stone or some dangerous place like that. That's always Chapter Two.
"And then they try to get you into a nice, secluded place, and kiss you. Honestly, the sameness of it is enough to drive a girl wild. Sometimes I say to myself, 'The next time a man looks at me that way and asks me if I feel a draft, I'm going to say, 'Oh, please let's dispense with Chapter Two and pass directly to the nice, secluded place. It will be such a change from the usual routine!'"
Mary laughed to herself at the recollection.
"If Vera's right," she thought, "he'll try to touch me next—perhaps the next time I come."
It happened sooner than that.
After she had tied up the papers and carried them to the car, and had made a tour of the new buildings—Archey Forbes blushing like a sunset the moment he saw her—she returned to her motor which was waiting outside the office building. Burdon must have been waiting for her. He suddenly appeared and opened the door of the car.