"I can't make you out," he confessed.
"Isn't mystery woman's prerogative?" she asked, and then in case she had frightened him with such a long word she let him kiss her hand before he went away.
Certainly for a girl who was not much over twenty Dorothy could not be accused of clumsiness. Her admirer had gone away piqued by the richness of her surroundings, the correctness of her demeanor, most of all by the touch of her hand upon his lips. Yes, she might congratulate herself.
"Rather a dear!" said Olive.
"Yes," Dorothy agreed. "Rather—but dreadfully young. Though his title only dates back to the eighteenth century, the baronetcy is older, and his ancestors really did come over with the Conqueror."
And one felt that such antiquity compensated Dorothy for some of that youthfulness she deplored.
During the next fortnight Clarehaven paid several visits to town, but Dorothy was steadily unwilling to be much alone with him, and, finally, one hot afternoon in mid-May, exasperated by her indifference and caution, he went back to Oxford in a fit of petulance (temper would have been too strong a word to describe his behavior, which was like a spoiled child's) and relapsed into another spell of silence. A week or so after this Queenie Molyneux asked Dorothy one day how long it was since she had heard from Clarehaven, and when Dorothy countered the awkward question by asking, rather bitterly, how long it was since she had heard from Lonsdale, Queenie admitted that he, too, had been silent for some time.
"I'm afraid I'm too expensive for Lonnie," she laughed, lightly. "He's a nice boy, but love in a cottage would never suit me, and love anywhere else wouldn't suit him. So that's that."
"You don't know what it is to be in love," said Dorothy.
"Cut it out!" said Miss Molyneux. "I'd rather not learn."