She could not believe his compliments were entirely genuine, therefore she took refuge behind her coolest, her most businesslike demeanor.

For a while they talked about nothing, although to each the other was eloquent, then "Bob" came as quickly as might be to the matter she had wired him about.
He listened with smiling lips and shining eyes, but he heard only the bare essentials of her story, for his thoughts were galloping, his mind was busy with new impressions of her, other voices than hers were in his ears.

That was his rose at her breast.

She had been pleased at his coming, otherwise she would not have paid him the girlish compliment of wearing her best.

Evidently she cared for him--or was she merely impressed, flattered?
Women had called him romantic, whereas he knew himself to be theatric; he wondered if she-- "I told Jackson you'd be out to look at the well and the books to-day," "Bob" was saying.