They exchanged an impulsive hand-clasp. Both were unusually animated.
"Are you well?" she asked, as though she had been away for months.
"Yes. Are you? It's perfectly fine of you to come"—still retaining her hand—"I wonder if you know how glad I am to see you! I wonder if you really do!"
She started to say something, hesitated, blushed, then their hands parted, and she answered lightly:
"What a very cordial welcome for a business girl on a horrid day! You mustn't spoil me, Mr. Desboro."
"I was afraid you might not come," he said; and indiscreet impulse prompted her to answer, as she had first answered him there on the platform two weeks ago:
"Do you suppose that mere weather could have kept me away from the famous Desboro collection?"
The charming malice in her voice, the delightful impertinence of her reply, so obviously at variance with fact, enchanted him. She was conscious of its effect on him, and, already slightly excited, ventured to laugh at her own thrust as though challenging his self-conceit to believe that she had even grazed herself with the two-edged weapon.
"Do I count for absolutely nothing?" he said.