"Oh, that! I thought it was frightful cheek on your part, but then, I've plenty of cheek myself."
"And when I challenged you to tennis?"
"And beat me? Did I look so furious?"
"You never turned a hair. But I thought you were simply wild, inwardly."
"Perhaps I was. But I hope I'm sportsman enough not to show it."
"Oh, you're a sportsman all right," said Kitty with conviction. "But if you didn't dislike me extremely, how did you feel about me?"
"Oh, I rather liked you when I first saw you. I thought you looked a decent sort and a thorough sport, and I said to myself that you'd make a welcome addition to the house. And then I saw that you disliked me for some reason or other—in fact, rather despised me—and so I just didn't care. I was rather sorry, but I wouldn't have let you see it for worlds. Perhaps, too, my pride was hurt."
"Yes, I did dislike you and feel rather—contemptuous," confessed Kitty, laughing under her breath. "You see, I'd never met anyone like you before. You were quite a new experience. It began when I first saw your name painted right across your trunk, 'The Hon. Duane l'Estrange Estevan,' and I said to myself, 'What a name!' I had a horror of anything aristocratic and a great contempt for laziness in any form whatever, and I thought you were both. I'm beginning to have my doubts about the laziness, however."
"We'll put it down to my 'unfortunate manner,'" conceded Duane generously, "though I won't deny it."
"Your manner is all that it should be," declared Kitty firmly, "so don't try to alter it. You couldn't be you without it. I was a silly fool."