"You
needn't apologize. I don't begrudge the poor devil whatever
satisfaction he can get out of that."
"And then as he is helping me down, with his heart in a flutter,--it
will flutter, I assure you."
"You mean his vanity; but it's of no consequence. He'd call it a heart
if he were putting the scene in a novel."
"With his whichever it is in a flutter, by some provoking accident down
comes my hair and tumbles over his shoulders."
Wilson regarded her with amused admiration.
"Five years ago," he observed placidly, "I should have thought you were
telling me half the truth to cover the other half, and were really
having a devilish flirtation with that cad."
Elsie flushed, and into her gay voice came a strain of seriousness.
"Five years are five years," she answered. "Don't go to dragging all
that up again, Chauncy."
His laugh was not untinged with malicious delight, but he put his hand
on hers and patted her fingers.
"All right, old girl. Bygones are bygones. But what in the world is all
this fooling with Rangely for?"
"Why, don't you see? The fool is sure to say something so silly that I
can snub him within an inch of his life.
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