"Damp weather," he said briefly. "How long do you remain in town, Diana?"
"Only over to-morrow."
"Good Lord! Is that all?"
"We've been here two days."
"And I was in Pittsburg, dammit!"
"You certainly were, my friend; but, could I help that? I did my best. We wired you, and we have telephoned you steadily every minute since we've been here.... Jim, do you know, in the excitement we've quite forgotten to sit down."
They laughed again; he placed a chair for her, but she chose the lounge, and made a place for him beside her. Within the half hour a physical transformation had changed her to a flushed and radiant young girl, shy and audacious by turns, brilliant of eye and lip, and charmingly alert to his every word and smile. From her shoulders the robe of care seemed to have fallen, shriveling, as it fell, in the soft fire of her youth and spring-tide, leaving visible only her fresh, unstained, and winsome beauty.
She told him all that had occurred at Adriutha—all except what had happened between herself and young Wallace; and for the time she really forgot that such a man existed.
Then she asked eager questions; and he laid open the first pages of his new life before her proud, happy, sympathetic eyes, tracing it paragraph by paragraph for her since he had entered into man's estate, and had put away childish things.
The clock ticked; the tongue of flame flickered low among its ashes. They talked on, heeding nothing except each other.