"You liked Beauclerk," says he, a little doggedly perhaps.
"Ye—es—very well."
"Very much! Why can't you be honest!" says he flashing out at her.
"I don't know what you mean," coldly. "If, however, you persist on my looking into it, I—" defiantly—"yes, I do like Mr. Beauclerk very much."
"Well, I don't know what you see in that fellow."
"Nothing," airily, having now recovered herself, "that's his charm."
"If," gravely, "you gave that as your opinion of Dicky Browne I could believe you."
She laughs.
"Poor Dicky," says she, "what a cruel judgment; and yet you are right;" she has changed her whole manner, and is now evidently bent on restoring him to good humor, and compelling him to forget all about Mr. Beauclerk. "I must give in to you about Dicky. There isn't even the vaguest suggestion of meaning about him. I—" with a deliberate friendly glance flung straight into his eyes—"don't often give in to you, do I?"
On this occasion, however, her coquetry—so generally successful—is completely thrown away. Dysart, with his dark eyes fixed uncompromisingly upon hers, makes the next move—an antagonistic one.