"How are you? It is long since we met; never, I think, since the night of the meeting with its exciting close. I've not thanked you properly, by the way, for the rapid extinction of the flames."
"Oh, any one could have done it; only I happened to be the one nearest you," said Paul, carelessly. "It needs no special thanks."
"Which is a civil way of saying that you could not let me burn, but that you would rather some one else had put me out," said May, mockingly. "Even so, I'm grateful; I've been calling on your friend Kitty, who informed me with great triumph that daddy was out, but 'Mr. Paul' was coming to tea with her. Questioned further, she informed me that he often came when she was by herself, and he said he liked it."
"So I do," Paul said.
"So tea fetches you if dinner does not; or perhaps it is not the meal, but the company. Frankly speaking, why do you accord your friendship to Kitty and not to mother and me? We may be neighbours for years and years; we may just as well be friends."
"I'm not a man of many friends," Paul answered, fairly brought to bay. "As for Kitty, she carried me by storm; she is the only child who has taken to me of her own free will."
"How very odd," said May, thoughtfully.
"Oh yes; I admit the oddity."
"But, if you are going to live here, are you content to be isolated from your fellows—to have no friends?" continued May, wonderingly.
"To have many acquaintances seems to me a dreary waste of life; and the word friendship, in the mouth of a man, implies many things."