‘As what?’
‘As to suppose you could want me.’
‘And there was I longing to hear about Phœbe! If you had only come, I could have contrived her going to the Zauberflöte with us last night, but I didn’t know the length of her tether.’
‘I did not know you were so kind.’
‘Be kinder yourself another time. Don’t I know how I have been torn to pieces at Hiltonbury, without a friend to say one word for the poor little morsel!’ she said, piteously.
He was impelled to an eager ‘No, no!’ but recalling facts, he modified his reply into, ‘Friends enough, but very anxious!’
‘There, I knew none of you trusted me,’ she said, pretending to pout.
‘When play is so like earnest—’
‘Slow people are taken in! That’s the fun! I like to show that I can walk alone sometimes, and not be snatched up the moment I pop my head from under my leading-strings.’
Her pretty gay toss of the head prevented Robert from thinking whether woman is meant to be without leading-strings.