Stella gave an incredulous laugh. "You don't know him. He will never let me go!"
"I know men pretty well, my dear, and after all he is a man, as well as a brute—very often the same thing, but not always. You can pretend to be jealous, if you like; it might help matters on!"
"I can't pretend any more about anything!" Stella had small hope that Maud would succeed in her project; if she did it would be little short of a miracle.
"Very well, then; lie low and leave it all to me. Here he comes, my lord the elephant. How the time has flown without him."
She turned to greet Robert as he came into the room. "Well, here you are at last, just in time to save us from dying of dullness. Have you been working very hard? If so, how do you manage to look as if you had just come out of a band-box? You ought to be made to give up the secret!"
Robert regarded her with amused indulgence. "How do you manage to talk such nonsense and look so fetching?" he retorted.
"Do I look fetching?" She rose and shook her skirts. "Oh! I've lost my shoe!" She hopped, and held forth a slim little foot in an open-work stocking. "There it is, under that chair."
With a grunt, Robert stooped and retrieved the shoe. "What an absurdity!" he exclaimed, balancing it on the palm of his hand.
She clutched his arm to steady herself. "Don't make my shoe look silly! I daren't put my foot down; I might tread on a pin or something and get 'mortification-set-in' or whatever it is."
He pushed her into a chair. "Now then, 'hold up' and be shod." He pressed her ankle with his finger and thumb. "Quite clean: no splint, not a wind-gall!" He took his time fitting on the truant shoe.