"No!" she said. "Nor I—here in the North."
She saw what was coming—and it came.
"If I present myself to you properly, may I walk along?" he smiled—"we're going the same road, it seems."
"Are you willing to be sponsor for yourself?" she smiled back.
"Only in exceptional instances," he bowed and removed his hat. "Permit me to present Charles Porshinger to Mrs. Lorraine!"
She held out her hand.
"I'm glad to meet Mr. Porshinger," she said.
He fell back into step with her and they swung along, appraising each other while they talked—only Stephanie's appraisal was also with a woman's natural intuition. And the more she appraised him the less she liked him, but the more she set herself to win him—slowly and discreetly, as a clever woman knows so well how to do. And for all his shrewdness in the affairs of men, he was as a child in the ways of women.
Presently they came to a stile and Stephanie paused.