Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/95

 "Were you expecting to meet any one else, here, to-night?" she inquired in suavest mockery.

He lifted his shoulders helplessly, and tried to school his tongue to coherence. "I confess. … Well, certainly I didn't count on finding you here, Miss Wentworth. And the black cloak, you know"

"Reversible, of course: grey inside, as you see—Handsome Dan!" The girl laughed quietly, drawing aside an edge of the garment to reveal its inner face of silken grey and the fluted ruffles of the grey skirt underneath.

He nodded appreciation of the device, his mind now busy with speculations as to what he should do with the girl, now that he had caught her. At the same time he was vaguely vexed by her persistent repetition of the obsolescent nickname.

"Handsome Dan," he iterated all but mechanically. "Why do you call me that, please? Have we met before? I could swear, never before this night!"

"But you are altogether too modest," she laughed. "Not that it's a bad trait in the character of a