He started to speak, but was withheld by her impassibility.
Again the same cry, and this time, the last word was accentuated.

A boy entered.
As the clerk, slightly raising his eyebrows, turned toward her, Grace gave a little start; an enlightened glance shot from her eyes; the significance of the call gradually dawned upon her.
"I am Miss Ridge!" came excitedly from her trembling lips, the hot blood crimsoning her cheeks.
"A telephone--" "For me ?" she asked uneasily.
"From Mr.Ridge; wants you to wait," finished the boy.
"Thank you! Oh, thank you!" The girl beamed her relief on the staring bell-boy.

And, the message having been delayed, the grateful words were hardly spoken before Hugh, almost distracted, rushed into the room.
Regardless of appearances or consequences, the tall young fellow seized her and kissed her in a fashion that would have brought terrible rebuke, under any other circumstance, and which certainly caused the clerk to consider this Mr.Ridge the most demonstrative brother that in a long experience in hotel life he had ever encountered.

When Hugh held her at arm's length to give his admiring gaze full scope, he saw tears of joy swimming in her eyes.

Her voice quivered as she sighed: "I should have died in another moment!" "You are the dearest girl in all the world!" Then he explained to her the cause of the delay.