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 spoiled 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.
Miss Wynter puts that glance behind her, and perhaps there is something—something a little dangerous in the soft, soft look she now turns upon him.
"He thinks so, too, of course?" says she, ever so gently. Her tone is half a question, half an assertion. It is manifestly unfair, the whole thing. Hardinge, believing in her tone, her smile, falls into the trap. Mindful of that night when the professor in despair at her untimely descent upon him, had said many things unmeant, he answers her.
"Hardly that. But——"
"Go on."
"There was a little word or two, you know," laughing.
"A hint?" laughing too, but how strangely! "Yes? And——?"