A figure got hastily to its feet and came out into the hall to meet her as she passed the door of the reception-room.  “Miss Roberta!” said an eager voice.

“Why, Mr. Westcott!  I didn’t know you were in town!”

“I didn’t intend to be until next month, as you knew.  But this wonderful weather was too much for me.”

He held her hand and looked down into her face from his tall height.  He told her what he thought of her appearance—­in detail with his eyes, in modified form with his lips.

“In my old school clothes?” laughed Roberta.  “How draggy winter things seem the first warm days.  This velvet hat weighs like lead on my head to-day.”  She took it off.  “I’ll run up and make myself presentable,” said she.

“Please don’t.  You’re exactly right as you are.  And—­I want you to go for a walk if you’re not too tired.  The road that leads out by the West Wood marshes—­it will be sheer spring out there to-day.  I want to share it with you.”

So Roberta put on her hat again and went to walk with Forbes Westcott out the road that led by the West Wood marshes.  There was not a more romantic road to be found in a long way.

When they were well out into the country he began to press a question which she had heard before, and to which he had had as yet no answer.

“Still undecided?” said he, with a very sober face.  “You can’t make up your mind as to my qualifications?”

“Your qualifications are undoubted,” said she, with a face as sober as his.  “They are more than any girl could ask.  But I—­how can I know?  I care so much for you—­as a friend.  Why can’t we keep on being just good friends and let things develop naturally?”

“If I thought they would ever develop the way I want them,” he said earnestly, “I would wait patiently a great while longer.  But I don’t seem to be making any progress.  In fact, I seem to have gone backward a bit in your good graces.  Since I saw that young prince of shopkeepers in your company over at Eastman, I’ve been wondering—­”

“Prince of shopkeepers!  What an extraordinary characterization!  I thought he was a most amateurish shopkeeper.  He didn’t even know the name of his own batiste, much less where it was kept.”

“He knew how to skate and to take you along with him.  I beg your pardon!  But ever since that night I’ve been experiencing a most disconcerting sense of jealousy whenever I think of that young man.  He was such a magnificent figure there in the firelight; he made me feel as old as the Pyramids.  And when you two were gone so long and came back with such an odd look, both of you—­oh, I beg your pardon again!  This is most unworthy of me, I know.  But—­set me straight if you can!  Have you seen much of him since that night?”

“Absolutely nothing,” said Roberta quickly, with a sense of great relief.  “To-day he passed me in his car, on my way home from school, over on Egerton Avenue, and didn’t even stop.”