"How nice this all is," he remarked. "So rural, so peaceful, and so pleasant. I come from a place where there is no fruit, nor flowers, nor young ladies. You must be happy here." And he gave her a look which she thought very insinuating.
"Oh, I am happy enough," she conceded, "because I am bound to be happy wherever the young ladies are. But I could wish that things were different too." And she thought herself very discreet that she had not spoken more clearly.
"Things?" he repeated softly.
"Yes, my young ladies have odd ideas; I thought you knew."
He drew nearer to her side, very much nearer, and dropped the currants he had plucked gently into her pail.
"I know they have a fixed antipathy to going out, but they will get over that."
"Do you think so?" she asked eagerly.
"Don't you?" he queried, with an innocent look of surprise. He was improving in his dissimulation, or else he succeeded better with those of whom he had no fear.
"I don't know what to think. Are you an old friend of theirs?" she inquired. "You must be, to lunch with them."
"I never saw them before to-day," he returned, "yet I am an old friend. Reason that out," he leered.