Mary's chair flew back, and it was for her to gaze at me from afar off.
"What were you saying?" she demanded in a voice not "so very soft."
"Was I saying anything?" I answered, feigning surprise. "I thought I was only thinking. But you were speaking of Luther Warden."
"Was I?" she said, more quietly, but in an absent tone.
"You said he had paid you a great compliment, but do you know——"
I paused, being a bit nervous, and flushed, for she was looking right at me. Not till she turned away did I finish.
"Do you know," I went on, "last night when I saw you, I thought we must have met before, and I thought if I had met you anywhere before, it must have been in Heaven."
I had expected that at a time like this Josiah Nummler would appear. In that I was disappointed. In his place, with a bark and a bound, came a lithe setter, a perfect stranger to me, and Mary seized the long head in her hands and cried: "Why, Flash—good Flash."
She completely ignored my last remark, and patted the dog and talked to him.
"Isn't he a beauty?" she cried. "He is Mr. Weston's."