Some instinct had told her that she would meet him, and it was to her own astonishment that she realised how glad she was to see him.
"Good-afternoon, Miss Grahame! Isn't it odd? Bad as the day is, I felt certain I should meet you here!"
"And I knew that I should meet you," she returned, quickly, before taking thought; then, seeing the gladness in his eyes, she added, hastily,—
"That is nothing! I have had those presentiments about people ever since I was a child. And they are not necessarily about people I know and like well, but also——"
"About people you dislike—such as I?"
"I was not going to say that, Mr. Armstrong," she said, rather coldly. "'About strangers,' I should have said, although I really think," she added, thoughtfully, "that there is a sympathy of dislike, if one can call it so."
"And so by your sympathy of dislike you knew I should be here, and by my sympathy of like I knew you would be here—and we have met."
This was flirting, of course. Even inexperienced Laline knew that quite well. There was, of course, no harm in flirting with one's own husband; but then he did not know he was that, and must be put in his place.
"I am not good at discussing abstract subjects with strangers," she said; "and, also, I must be getting back home now."