After this long, unexplained absence Helen had meant to be very stiff when, on some fine day, Alan Howard remembered to come again. But now, under his ardent eyes, the colour ran up into her cheeks in rebellious defiance of her often strengthened determination and, though she wrenched herself free from him, something of the fire in his eyes was reflected in hers.
'Good afternoon, Mr. Cyclone,' she said quite as carelessly as his sudden appearance permitted her vaguely disturbed senses. 'What are you going to do? Run over me?'
He laughed joyously.
'I could eat you,' he told her enthusiastically. 'You look just that good to me. Lord, but I'm hungry for the sight of you!'
'That's nice of you to say so,' Helen answered. And now she was quite all that she had planned to be; as coolly indifferent as only a girl can be when something has begun to sing in her heart and she has made up her mind that no one must hear the singing. 'But I fail to see why this very excellent imitation of a man who hasn't seen his best friend for a couple of centuries.'
'It has been that long, every bit of it—longer.'
Helen's smile was that stock smile to be employed in answer to an inconsequential compliment paid by a chance acquaintance.
'Three or four days is hardly an eternity,' she retorted.
'Three or four days? Why, it's been over nine! Nearly ten.'
She appeared both amazed and incredulous. Then she waved the matter aside as of no moment.