She lifted herself to the table, crossing her feet and dangling them irresponsibly. “We might as well be comfy while we talk;” and she indicated, by a nod, a chair.
“Thanks. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take it standing.”
She did not seem in any hurry to begin, and Ridgway gave evidence of no desire to hasten her. But presently he said, with a little laugh that seemed to offer her inclusion in the joke:
“I’m on the anxious seat, you know—waiting to find out whether I’m to be the happiest man alive.”
“You know as much about it as I do.” She echoed his laugh ruefully. “I’m still as much at sea as I was last week. I couldn’t tell then, and I can’t now.”
“No news is good news, they say.”
“I don’t want to marry you a bit, but you’re a great catch, as you are very well aware.”
“I suppose I am rather a catch,” he agreed, the shadow of a smile at the corners of his mouth.
“It isn’t only your money; though, of course, that’s a temptation,” she admitted audaciously.
“I’m glad it’s not only my money.” He could laugh with her about it because he was shrewd enough to understand that it was not at all his wealth. Her cool frankness might have frightened away another man. It merely served to interest Ridgway. For, with all his strength, he was a vain man, always ready to talk of himself. He spent a good deal of his spare time interpreting himself to attractive and attracted young women.