"Considering," she said, "that we have been chasing cats on the back fences together and that, subsequently, you dug me out of the coal in my own cellar, I can't believe it is very dreadful if I ask you to luncheon with me.... Is it?"
"It is ador--it is," he corrected himself firmly, "exceedingly civil of you to ask me!"
"Then--will you?" almost timidly.
"I will. I shall not pretend any more. I'd rather lunch with you than be President of this Republic."
The butler pro tem. seated her.
"You see," she said, "a place had already been laid for you." And with the faintest trace of malice in her voice: "Perhaps your butler had his orders to lay two covers. Had he?"
"From me?" he protested, reddening.
"You don't suspect me, do you?" she asked, adorably mischievous. Then glancing over the masses of flowers in the center and at the corners of the lace cloth: "This is deliciously pretty. But you are either dreadfully and habitually extravagant or you believe I am. Which is it?"
"I think both are true," he said, laughing.
And a little while later when he returned from the basement after admitting Mr. Quinn, the plumber: