"I don't believe you're glad to see me!"
"And I—I'm wondering if I am."
"That's not a very pretty speech," she pouted, tugging at her hands till he had to resign them.
"But everything considered, not an unnatural one. You must know nothing had prepared me . . ."
"That's good—because I'd be dreadfully cross if anything had spoiled the surprise."
"Then you can't be cross with me at all."
"I don't know . . ." the young woman gravely doubted. Instinct with that quenchless spirit of coquetry in default of which she had not been Folly, she posed provocatively to him in the half-light of the window behind her, head daintily aslant, elfin mischief glinting through the dusk that masked her eyes. "I must say you might take it more kindly, seeing how happy it makes me. You don't know how long you've kept me waiting—I'd begun to be afraid you'd backed out of coming after all."
"Then you actually were expecting me for dinner?"
"Of course! without you it wouldn't really be a party."
So much for the suspicion that his escort had mistaken the way and blundered into the wrong premises . . . Then it behooved him to have his wits about him and beware of being misled into taking false steps on such false ground.