Part 3 (2/2)

”Oh, no!” His answer was spoken earnestly. ”I do not mea----”

But she interrupted him. In her nervousness felt that whilst her tongue was in action it would help to keep the helm the right way; said:

”Why should you? A stranger's opinion would necessarily be valueless.

You know nothing of me.”

The deafness of those who will not hear is proverbial. The underlying earnestness in the tone of his reply should have warned her.

”Aren't you going just a trifle too far?” he asked. ”We are not quite strangers. True, I know nothing of you--except that you are Miss Mivvins.”

An irresistible smile accompanied his words. His smile--and his laugh too--were capable of creating many friends. But he did not allow them to. His views on the subject of friends.h.i.+p were cynical in the extreme.

His smile was infectious. Once more those alluring dimples which he had noticed at their first meeting deepened in her face.

”It is distinctly more my misfortune than my fault,” he continued, ”that I know so little of you. May I say--with an absence of fear of your thinking me impertinent--that I should like, much like, to know more of you?”

The flush, that becoming flush, on her cheek again. The eyes were fringed over by those long lashes of hers as she cast them groundwards.

Just a blend of trouble in her look as she queried:

”Really?”

He liked the pink showing on the white. Colours inspire some men.

Perhaps the combination in her face inspired him. Anyway, there was more vigour and determination in his voice as he answered:

”Yes.”

She, dallying, as a woman will, quite well knew that there was a spark.

That it would burst into flame, chose she to fan it; gained time by asking:

”Why?”

He vaulted on to his hobby horse. The question was a stirrup helping him to the saddle.

”Because I--may I say it?--hail you in a measure as a kindred soul.”

She lifted her eyes; he could not fail to read the astonishment filling them; continued:

”You are here in October, and you don't look bored; don't look as if life held no further charm for you. You do not follow the fas.h.i.+onable decrying of the place simply because it is out of fas.h.i.+on--_because_ it is October.”

She smiled. Encouraged by it, he continued, in the same strain:

”You are always alone, yet you create the impression that you are happy.

You don't seem to sigh for bands of music, to hanker after a crowded promenade. You find existence possible without a shoal of people to help you pa.s.s your time.”

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