He was very quick for an Englishman. "I was allowing myself to ask after your mother," he began. "I was afraid"—he glanced at the table laid for one—"she was not well, perhaps?"
"Oh, but that's very kind of you, I'm sure." She smiled. He saw the small white even teeth....
And before three days had passed, he was so deeply in love that he simply couldn't help himself.
"I believe," he said lamely, "this is yours. You dropped it, you know. Er—may I keep it? It's only an olive."
They were, of course, in an olive grove when he asked it, and the sun was setting.
She looked at him, looked him up and down, looked at his ears, his eyes. He felt that in another second her little fingers would slip up and tweak the first, or close the second with a soft pressure——
"Tell me," he begged: "did you dream anything—that first night I saw you?"
She took a quick step backwards. "No," she said, as he followed her more quickly still, "I don't think I did. But," she went on breathlessly as he caught her up, "I knew—from the way you picked it up——"
"Knew what?" he demanded, holding her tightly so that she could not get away again.
"That you were already half and half, but would soon be altogether."