"This is a real pleasure to me," Peckover remarked, determined to get on flirting terms without wasting precious time in preliminary small-talk.
"This lovely day?" Ulrica responded, with an obvious pretence of misunderstanding his drift. "Yes, it is quite a treat."
"I meant," he pursued, with a stimulating glance at the fresh, pretty face, highly provocative now with a roguish smile, "a walk with you. I've been longing for this moment ever since I first set eyes on you."
Her glance of amused surprise suggested that she thought he was plunging in medias res with a vengeance. "Clearly," she commented, "patience is one of your virtues."
"I don't know about patience," he replied. "If I've waited a long time for my chance, it has not been exactly patience, but because I couldn't get it sooner."
"Everything comes to him who waits," Ulrica observed with a careless laugh, to show she was not taking him too seriously.
"I hope you don't mind the change?" he suggested.
"In the weather?" she asked mischievously.
"Bother the weather! No. From Quorn to me."
"That remains to be seen," she answered. "So far, I have no objection to it."