"Yes? And why?" asks Perpetua, still smiling, still apparently amused.
"For one thing, the sense of restraint that belongs to the relations between them. A guardian, you know, would be able to control one in a measure."
"Would he?"
"Well, I imagine so. It is traditionary. And you?"
"I don't know about other people," says Miss Wynter, calmly, "I know only this, that nobody ever yet controlled me, and I don't suppose now that anybody ever will."
As she says this she looks at him with the prettiest smile; it is a mixture of amusement and defiance. Hardinge, gazing at her, draws conclusions. ("Perfectly hates him," decides he.)
It seems to him a shame, and a pity too, but after all, old Curzon was hardly meant by Nature to do the paternal to a strange and distinctly spoilt child, and a beauty into the bargain.
"I don't think your guardian will have a good time," says he, bending over her confidentially, on the strength of this decision of his.
"Don't you?" She draws back from him and looks up. "You think I shall lead him a very bad life?"
"Well, as he would regard it. Not as I should," with a sudden, impassioned glance.