“Our American ways,” she amended sweetly. “Oh, I am all American in my heart!” The gay and willful little dimple again materialized on her cheek. “Still, one cannot remain indefinitely leaning over a gate in conversation, however thrilling, with a young man whose name one does not even know, can one?” she pointed out.
“You don’t know my name?” Young Mr. Robson looked distinctly annoyed. “Mr. Laurens presented me. Don’t you remember?”
“But you were only a reporter who was going to write something about me, then.” With an emphasis on the final word, slight, indeed, yet amply sufficient to make amends.
Her caller brightened perceptibly. “Surname Robson. Given name, Jeremy. Jem, when you get to know me better.”
She opened her eyes very wide to take in this idea. “You expect that we are going to know each other so well as that?”
“We certainly are if I can bring it about. Don’t you think I’ve made a good start?”
“At least a quick one. What is your next step?”
“That’s what’s worrying me a little.”
“But so progressing a young man as you, with so much perseverance,” she taunted, “surely if you planned to see me once, you would plan how to see me again. Perhaps, though, you do not wish to see me again soon,” she added, with an adorable mock-melancholy droop of the alluring lips.
“You’ll never win any guessing contests on that form, Miss Ames,” he assured her, shaking his head solemnly. “But you’re right enough about my having a plan. The question is, will it work.”