"Have you been thinking of me?"
"Always—always. And you?"
"Nearly always," she said teasingly. "But I have been making up my accounts."
"Avaricious woman!—thinking of nothing but money. Dear—I have several bits of news for you. But let me wash!" He held out his hands—"I am not fit to touch you!"
She disengaged herself quietly.
"What news?"
"Some letters first," he said, smiling. "A budget and a half—mostly for you, from all my home people. Can you face it?"
"In reply to your cable?"
"My most extravagant cable! On the top of course of sacks of letters!"
"Before we were engaged?"