Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/91

 With this, he began to wonder whether she really would meet him; whether she would not change her mind and decide that, after all, it was best not to see him now. This produced in him no feeling of trepidation because he would have gone to her if she had not come to him—if she did not come to-night he would go to her apartment and all the world could not stop him. If she did not—

He rose hastily, because at this moment he caught a glimpse of her at the end of the long corridor, halting in slight uncertainty. The evening had turned chilly with the first approach of autumn, and she wore a blue and gold wrap above the furry collar of which her head, encased in a lacy something, peeped like a fresh field flower. He hastened down the room to meet her and she stood stock still to await his approach.

“Am I late, dear benefactor?” she asked, extending her hand to him. He bent above it and kissed the very tips of her tiny fingers—a trick he had learned in Europe and which seemed perfectly apropos when he did it.

“You will always seem late when I wait for you. Miss Pomeroy,” he remarked, smiling. “The time will always be long⸺”

“Don’t fire all your guns so early in the evening,” she replied. “You will do better to keep some of them in reserve for later, Mr. Morley.”

“I don’t have to,” he came back. “I’ll make up better ones as we go along.”

“I’m sure this is perfectly improper—dining with a man whom I have never actually met, isn’t it?” she appealed to him.

He nodded pleasantly. “It is.”

“Isn’t that fine!” she ejaculated.