“The other boy?” she asked. “Well, this is the nicest supper party ever! And you are awfully good to invite me.” Ruggles patted his shirt front and adjusted his cravat. “My idea,” he told her, “all the blame on me, Miss Lane. Charge it up to me! Dan here had cold feet from the first. He said you wouldn’t come.” She laughed deliciously. “He did? Hasn’t got much faith, has he?” Miss Lane drew her long gloves off, touched the orchids with her little hands, on which the ever present rings flashed, and went on talking to Ruggles, to whom she seemed to want to address her conversation. “I’m simply crazy over these flowers.” The older man showed his pleasure. “My choice again! Walked up myself and chose the bunch, blame me again; ditto dinner; mine from start to finish—hope you’ll like it. I would have added some Montana peas and some chocolate soda-water, only I thought you might not understand the joke.” Miss Lane beamed on him. Although he was unconscious of it, she was not fully at ease: he was not the kind of man she had expected to see. Accustomed to young fellows like the boy and their mad devotion, accustomed to men with whom she could be herself, the big, bluff, middle-aged gentleman with his painfully correct tie, his rumpled iron-gray hair, and his deference to her, though an unusual diversion, was a little embarrassing. “Oh, I know your dinner is ripping, Mr. Ruggles. I’m on a diet of milk and eggs myself, and I expect your order didn’t take in those.” But at his fallen countenance she hurried to say: “Oh, I wouldn’t have told you that if I hadn’t been intending to break through.” And with childlike anticipation she clapped her hands and said: “We’re going to have ‘lots of fun.’ Just think, they don’t know what that means here in London. They say ‘heaps of sport, you know.’” She imitated the accent maliciously. “It’s just we Americans who know what ‘lots of fun’ is, isn’t it?” Near her Dan Blair’s young eyes were drinking in the spectacle of delicate beauty beautifully gowned, of soft skin, glorious hair, and he gazed like a child at a pantomime. Under his breath he exclaimed now, with effusion, “You bet your life we are going to have lots of fun!” And turning to him, Miss Lane said: “Six chocolate sodas running?” “Oh, don’t,” he begged, “not that kind of jag.” She shook with laughter. “Are you from Blairtown, Mr. Ruggles? I don’t think I ever saw you there.” And the Westerner returned: “Well, from what Dan tells me, you’re not much of a fixture yourself, Miss Lane. You were just about born and then kidnapped.” Her gay expression faded. And she repeated his word, “Kidnapped? That’s a good word for it, Mr. Ruggles.” She picked up between her fingers a strand of the green fern, and looked at its delicate tracery as it lay on the palm of her hand.