"Miss Wellington, I present Mr. Armitage, an officer—a lieutenant, I think—of the United States Navy."
Anne sat silent for a second and then stretched her hand out over the seat, laughing.
"What a situation!" she exclaimed. "I am pleased to know that my 'Dying Gladiator'—" she paused, and looked inquiringly at Armitage, who had taken and released her hand in silence.
"I don't wish to be impertinent," she continued at length, flushing vividly, "but I feel it is my right to know why you posed as a physical instructor and entered service in our house. Surely I—you—you must have had some good reason."
"Anne," Sara hastened to relieve Armitage of apparent confusion, or irritation, she could not tell which, "naturally his reasons for the deceit were excellent." She looked at her friend with a significant raising of the brows. "I—those reasons still exist, do they not, Jack?" She scowled admonishingly at him.
Armitage, who plainly diagnosed Sara's drift, was smiling broadly, as Anne looked at him with a curious, wondering expression.
"They still exist—decidedly, Sara," he said. He paused for a second, and then continued in the lamest sort of way, "Will you let me be a driver just a little while longer, Miss Wellington? It is really important. When I explain everything you 'll understand. Of course, I 've been governed by the best motives."
Anne was somewhat more dignified.
"Certainly, I have not the slightest objection to having a naval officer for a driver—if you have none. I must say, though, I shall be eager to learn the reasons for your rather—rather unconventional behavior."
"You shall be the first one to know," replied Jack, with quite a different meaning in mind than that which Sara Van Valkenberg read, whose eyes, by the way, were dancing with excitement.