"Murray--you didn 't!"
"Didn't I? You had on a pink-and-white checked apron that came up over your shoulders. Your sleeves were short, and your hair curled round your ears, the way it does on damp days. You----"
"Where were you? How did you know! Who----"
"I was on the other side of the door, which you forgot to lock. Never in my life was I so bowled over by the sight of a girl in a kitchen."
"If I had known you were looking----"
"Precisely. That was why Shirley wouldn't let me call you out. Of course I should have kissed you--I never felt more like it--and that might have endangered the composition of the salad."
"I 'm afraid it would," laughed Jane. "As it was, I made the one real mistake of the luncheon--I sent that salad in on the game plates! The girls were in such a flurry they did n't notice till the plates began to come out again. I hope mother did n't mind very much."
"I 'll warrant nobody else did. Mrs. Arlo Stevenson is as short-sighted as an owl in the day-time, and as I understand it, Mrs. Stevenson was the guest who counted--goodness knows why! I think she's insufferable. I 'm glad mother 's got her off her mind, for the time being. It will give her a chance to recuperate. Poor mother! She misses a lot of fun, does n't she?"
"She thinks it's we who miss it."
"Perhaps we can show her better some day--when we 've been very good and earned that house by ourselves. Hi! What?" exclaimed Murray. "How you jumped! Did you think that house by ourselves was n't really to materialise some day?"