Franklin was quite content to count as a stray caller, and he had always conjecture enough for two in any encounter.

He talked away in his even, deliberate tones, while they drank tea and ate the hottest of muffins that stood in a covered dish on a brass tripod before the fire, and, while they talked, Miss Buchanan shot rather sharper glances at him from under her eyebrows.
'So you were at Merriston with Helen's Miss Jakes,' she said, placing him.

'It made a match, that party, didn't it?
Quite a good thing for Gerald Digby, too, I hear.

Miss Jakes is soon to be back, Helen tells me.' 'Next week,' said Franklin.
'And the wedding for November.' 'So I'm told.' 'You've known Miss Jakes for some time ?' 'For almost all my life,' said Franklin, with his calm and candid smile.
'Oh, old friends, then.

You come from Boston, too, perhaps ?' 'Well, I come from the suburbs, in the first place, but I've been in the hub itself for a long time now,' said Franklin.