He came forward with alacrity and took her extended hands. Each displayed unaffected pleasure in the other. "Oh, about an hour ago! How well you look!" "I've been enjoying myself. I suppose that's why... Dickie's late." She seated herself and began drawing off her gloves. Dare returned to his former chair. "Tell me how you have contrived to get so much pleasurable excitement out of the afternoon," he said. "Oh, bridging," she said,--"and I won--enormously. But never mind me. What I want to know is, what has abruptly shaken your obduracy? You have persistently refused my pressing invitations for over a year,--and now suddenly you arrive." He sat forward and regarded her inquiring face with a faintly amused smile. Ever since he had known her she had subjected him to this kind of suggestive inquiry. She was always reading a motive in his simplest act. "Your last invitation arrived at a moment when it was possible, as well as agreeable, to accept it," he explained. "I couldn't get away before." "Umph!" she returned, and laughed. "I thought perhaps--But no matter. Your sex always suits its own convenience. Now tell me exactly what you want to do while you are here, and I'll lay myself out to be obliging. That's a prerogative of my sex, and I've not noticed that you ever attempt to check it." "Why should one discourage anything so commendable?" he asked. "That's no answer to my question," she observed. "No," he returned. "But, you see, the question scarcely needs answering from my point of view. What should I want to do, but enjoy your society, and loaf delightfully?" "Never at a loss," she said, and smiled at him approvingly. "I hope your ideas of loafing will fit in with my evening's arrangement I have asked the Arnotts and three others in to make a couple of tables for bridge. I had a feeling at the back of my mind that you would wish to see something of your sweet-faced Madonna during your stay, so I wasted no time. Considering that I am three parts in love with you myself, that is rather magnanimous on my side." "In any one else it might be," he returned; "but you were made like that. Besides, you are fully assured that no one on earth could shake my intense admiration for yourself. I wonder why you married Dick?" he added speculatively. "All the nicest women are married." "I wasn't married when I met you first," she reminded him. "The truth of the matter is, you, like the majority of middle-aged bachelors, only appreciate the fruit which grows beyond your reach." "Middle-aged!" he protested. "Come now! I'm only thirty-five." "And seventy is the limit the Psalmist gives us. You have wasted your time, my friend." "Yes," he agreed abruptly, and sat a little straighten, "I'll have to go the pace," he said, "in order to catch up."