This time he was looking smilingly and deliberately into her eyes; and she could not ignore his unwarranted freedom.
"Why do you use my first name, Mr. Quarren?" she asked quietly.
"Because I always think of you as Strelsa, not as Mrs. Leeds."
"Is that a reason?"—very gravely.
"You can make it so if you will."
She hesitated, watching his expression. Then:
"You say that you always think of me—that way. But I'm afraid that, even in your thoughts, the repetition of my name has scarcely accustomed you to the use of it."
"You mean that I don't think of you very frequently?"
"Something like that. But please, Mr. Quarren, if you really mean to give me a little of that friendship which I had begun to despair of, don't let our very first reunion degenerate into silly conversation——"
"Strelsa——"