Quite without fire, almost indolently, she spoke; very simply, too, glancing round at him, as though she could not expect much understanding from such an alien listener.
"I'm awfully glad, you know, to get you to talk to me like this," said Sir Basil, after a meditative pause; "I saw a good bit of you in New York, but you never talked much with me."
"You had mama to talk to."
"But I want to talk to you, too. You do a lot of thinking, I can see that."
"I try to"; she smiled a little at his naïveté.
"Your mother told me so much about you that I'm tremendously eager to know you for myself."
"Well, I hope that you may come to, for mama's pictures of me are not likely to be accurate," said Imogen mildly. "We don't think in the same way or see things in the same way and, though we are so fond of each other, we are not interested in the same things. Perhaps that is why I don't interest her particular friends. They would not find much in common between mama and me"; but her smile was now a little humorous and she was quite prepared for his "Oh, but, I assure you, I am interested in you."
Already, with her unerring instinct for power, Imogen knew that Sir Basil was interested in her. There was only, to be sure, a languid pleasure in the sense of power over a person already, as it were, so bespoken, so in bondage to other altars; but, though without a trace of coquetry, the smile quietly claimed him as a partial, a damaged convert. Imogen always knew when people were capable of being, as she expressed it to herself, "Hers." She made small effort for those who were without the capacity. She never misdirected such smiles upon Rose, or Miss Bocock, or Mrs. Wake. And now, as Sir Basil went on to asseverate, just behind her shoulder, his pleasant tones quite touched with eagerness, that the more he saw of her the more interested he became, she allowed him to draw her into a playful argument on the subject.
"Yes, I quite believe that you would like me—if you came to know me"—she was willing to concede at last; "but, no, indeed no, I don't think that you would ever feel much interest in me."
"You mean because I'm not sufficiently interesting myself? Is that it, eh?" Sir Basil acutely asked, reflecting that he had never seen a girl walk so beautifully or dress so exquisitely. The sunlight glittered in her hair.