She looked at him for a moment without giving him her hand, then preceded him into the room.  There was a heavy curtain of dull blue silk hanging by the door frame, and King noiselessly drew this across.  Then he turned and confronted the girl.  She had drawn off her motoring gloves, but made no motion to remove either the rough gray coat in which she had been driving or the small gray velvet hat drawn smoothly down over her curls with a clever air of its own.  Altogether she looked not in the least like a hostess, but very like a traveller who has only paused for a brief stop on a journey to be immediately continued.

He stood there watching her for a minute, himself a challenging figure with his dark, bright face, his fine young height, his air of—­quite suddenly—­commanding the situation.  And he was between the girl and the door.  The two pairs of eyes looked straight into each other.

“Well?” he said.

“Well?” said Anne Linton Coolidge in return.

“Did you expect me to wait any longer?”

“I was afraid you might come and go—­and never say so much as ‘Well?’” said she.

This was more than mortal man could bear—­and there was no more waiting done by anybody.  When Jordan King had—­temporarily—­done satisfying the hunger of his lips and arms, he spoke again, looking down searchingly at a face into which he had brought plenty of splendid colour.

“If I had found you in that poor place I thought I should, it would have been just the same,” he said.

“I really believe it would,” admitted Anne.

* * * * *

Half an hour afterward, emerging from the small room which had held such a big experience, the pair discovered Red Pepper Burns just descending the stairway.  He scrutinized their faces sharply, then advanced upon them.  They met him halfway.  He gravely took Anne’s hand and set his fingers on her pulse.

“Too rapid,” he said with a shake of the head.  “Altogether too rapid.  You have been undergoing much excitement—­and so early in the morning, too.  As your physician I must caution you against such untimely hours.”

He felt of King’s wrist, and again he shook his head.  “Worse and worse,” he announced.  “Not only rapid, but bounding.  The heart is plainly overworked.  These cases are contagious.  One acts upon the other—­no doubt of it—­no doubt at all.  I would suggest—­”

He found both his arms grasped by Jordan King’s strong hands, and he allowed himself to be held tightly by that happy young man.  “Give us your best wishes!” demanded his captor.

“Why, you’ve had those from the first.  I saw this coming before either of you,” Burns replied.

“Not before I did,” asserted King.

“Not before I did,” declared Anne.

Then the two looked at each other, and Burns, smiling at them, his hazel eyes very bright, requested to be restored the use of his arms.  This being conceded, he laid those arms about the shoulders before him and drew the two young people close within them.