"I say, were you the other girl behind the gate?"
"I didn't mean you to see me."
"I only caught a glimpse of you. I remember your friend, though."
"She remembered you, too."
"I don't know her name, though."
"Julia Robins."
"Ah, yes—is it? He's about polished off that bone, hasn't he? Is she—er—a great friend of yours?"
His manner was perhaps a little at fault; the slightest note of chaff had crept into it; and the slightest was enough to put Sophy's quills up.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Why not? Every reason why she should be," he answered with his lips. His eyes answered more, but he refrained his tongue. He was scrupulously a gentleman—more so perhaps than, had sexes and places been reversed, Sophy herself would have been. But his eyes told her. "Only," he went on, "if so, why did you hide?"