“You were too busy with important things——”
“Eris! Are you really going to overlook my rotten behaviour?”
They both had become nervously excited, although their voices were low. Her protesting hand hesitated toward his arm; his fists were clenched in his pockets,—effort at self restraint:
“You’re so square and decent,” he said. “When I saw you I realised what a rotter I’d been. You ought to have cut me dead to-night——”
“Oh,” she said with a swift intake of breath and her hovering hand a moment on his arm.
After a long silence: “All right,” he said almost grimly. He looked up, laughed: “I’m yours, Eris. Everybody else seems to be, too.”
Her face, clearing, flushed swiftly, and she gave him a confused look.
“I shan’t tease,” he said,—back on the old footing in a twinkling, “—but you do seem to be popular with people. Isn’t it a rather agreeable feeling?”
“Yes.... I want to tell you——” She hesitated, laughed hopelessly. “I’m so excited, Mr. Annan, I don’t know how to begin. Why, the things I have to tell you—and the things I have to ask you—would take a year to utter——”
“All the time you’ve been away?” he inquired gaily.