"Isn't it fun?" she said gaily.
He looked back gravely into her laughing eyes.
"May I drink your health?" he demanded. "And success to whatever venture has brought you so far from the beaten trail."
She set down her glass, making a little moue of pretended disappointment at him with her red mouth.
"And I was thinking that I was to have the honour of drawing something gallant, at least flattering, something befitting the occasion, from you!" she said. "Why don't you say, 'Here's lookin' at you,' and be done with it?"
He laughed.
"Then I'll say what I was thinking. May I drink this to the one woman I have ever seen whom I'd fall in love with … if I were a fool like other men?"
He drank his wine slowly, draining the glass, his eyes full upon hers. She laughed and when he had done said lightly,
"At least that's better." She sipped her own wine and set it aside again. "Why didn't you say that in the first place? Why must you think one thing and say another?"
"That way lies wisdom," he told her coolly.