“Then it was kind,” said Lady Bell, recovering her courage and smiling at him with that wonderful smile which Hetley and all the rest of them talked so much about.
Jack looked at her. Yes, certainly she was very beautiful, and there was a subtle something in that smile.
His ill-temper began to disappear.
“I should say,” he said, “that a man ought to feel lucky at the chance of getting here.”
“They also told me,” said Lady Bell, archly, “that you never paid compliments.”
“Someone seems to have been taking a great deal of trouble to make me out a regular boor,” said Jack, with his curt laugh. “Did they also tell you that I lived in the woods up a tree, and existed on wild animals?”
“Like a savage?” said Lady Bell, wickedly.
Jack flushed and looked at her; then her smile conquered and he laughed.
“Yes, that is what they call me, confound their impudence! But I’m a very tame kind of a savage, Lady Earlsley; I shan’t scalp you.”
“It wouldn’t matter much, would it?” she retorted. “They make such beautiful false hair now.”