The old gardener looked at her with an intelligent grin, inwardly remarking that Missy was a deep one, she was. The aeronaut laughed with incontinent heartiness. The Colonel explained to her how the accident had occurred. After which Reginald Hampton climbed out of his nest, reached terra firma, and found himself entirely satisfied with the slim beauty of his rescuer.
The moment might have been an embarrassing one for the average man; it was, however, precisely the kind of situation that Reginald Hampton most enjoyed.
"Delighted to make your acquaintance at closer quarters," he remarked, first raising his cap to the Colonel, and then extending his hand. "Your daughter, I presume?" he added, turning to Violet Currie. "I am glad, by the way, she did not happen to be occupying the hammock there, or my abrupt descent might have startled her somewhat."
"So it might, so it might," responded his host, urbanely. "Now, let us go indoors; you must be positively famishing, and that port of mine is itching, I know, to see the light of day."
"What a time you are going to have!" whispered the girl, as they took their places at table.
He and she managed to stave off the evil day until lunch was half over; but procrastination was not nearly as wholesale a thief of time as they wished him to be.
"Now, about those two unique dahlias of yours," began the Colonel; "you really must allow me to come and see them."
"Delighted, sir. Any time that may be convenient to you. Come and spend a week with me."
"You are very kind. I should say to-morrow if, literally, any time would do," laughed the Colonel; "but I think even you cannot induce dahlias to flower before July."
"Well, no. Of course, my 'anytime' presupposed these natural limits," said the aeronaut, aloud.