"Hollo?" said a voice on one side of a woodland stile.
"Hollo?" responded another opposite. "It's you?" continued Leo, stepping across, and giving Valentine Purcell her hand. "So you've come back, Val? What ages you have been away! I have missed you dreadfully."
"Not you. I don't believe it." Val beamed all over. "I say, have you though? You look uncommonly fit;" and he eyed her with a certain dubious admiration. If she were laughing at him, he was not going to be taken in, as he had been on several previous occasions.
"To be sure I'm fit, why shouldn't I be fit? I lead, oh, such a healthy life," retorted she, with mocking emphasis. "I eat, and I sleep, and I'm out all day. I do nothing but health from morning to night. Well?"
"Did you really miss me, Leo?"
"Humph!" said Leo, beginning to walk on.
"Did you know I had come back?" pursued he. "Did you think I should be here about this time? Did you——"
"Think you'd bother me with a lot of silly questions?" Leo whose first greeting had been simple and natural, assumed a pettish, artificial air. "Can't you think of anything more amusing to say than, 'Did you, did you, did you?'"
"Ha—ha—ha!"
"And then to laugh idiotically!"