"What?"
"I wish I could tell you just what a privilege it's been to meet you."
He felt he had failed. He had not expressed himself well. She did not understand.
"I shall never forget it," he said, plunging ahead.
She stopped a little guiltily and looked at him.
"You queer boy," she said, too pleasantly moved to be severe. "You queer, romantic boy! Why, of course you're going to visit us this summer, and we're going to be good chums, aren't we?"
He did not answer.
"Aren't we?" she repeated, amused at a situation that was not entirely strange.
"No!" he said abruptly, amazed at his own audacity; and with an impulse that he had not suspected he closed the conversation and led the way to the Lodge.