"Oh!" said Heathcote, with a sound of fatigue in his voice. "Are we never to have an end to that subject?"
"Yes; when you make an end."
"One likes to amuse one's self. You do."
"Whom do you mean now?" said Helen, diverted from her questions for the moment, as he intended she should be.
To tell the truth, Heathcote did not mean any one; but he never hesitated. So now he answered, promptly, "Dexter." He had long ago discovered that he could make any woman believe he was jealous of any man, no matter whom, even one to whom she had never spoken; it presupposed that the other man had been all the time a silent admirer, and on this point the grasp of the feminine imagination is wide and hopeful.
"How like you that is! Mr. Dexter is nothing to me."
"You have been out driving with him already," said Heathcote, pursuing his advantage; "and you have not been out with me."
"He has gone; so we need not quarrel about him."
"When did he go?"
"Early this morning. And to show you how unjust you are, he went because last evening Anne Douglas refused him."