"My dear Dodie!" he exclaimed, reaching for her hand. "This is a most delightful surprise."
"My dear Laffie!" she mocked, deftly slipping both slender hands into her muff. "I quite agree as to it's being a surprise."
"Then you didn't come down to meet me?"
"You?" she asked, with an irony too fine drawn for his conceit. "Come to meet you?"
"Yes. Didn't you get my note saying that all work on my bridge was stopped by the cold and that I would run down to see you?"
"To see me—plus the world, the flesh, and the devil!"
"Now, Dodie!" he protested, with a smirk on his handsome, richly colored face.
The girl's eyes hardened into black diamonds as she met his assured gaze. "Mr. Brice-Ashton, you will hereafter kindly address me as 'Miss Gantry.' You must be aware that I am now out."
"Oh, I've no objections, just so we're not out," he punned.
She gave him her shoulder, and peered eagerly through the pickets of the iron fence at a train that was backing into the station. Ashton shrugged, lighted a gilt-tipped cigarette, and asked: "Permit me to inquire, Miss Gon-tray, if I'm not the happy man for whom you wait, who is?"