"Well, so am I," says Dorian, turning to accompany her.
Miss Broughton glances at him demurely.
"You can't want to go to the vicarage again?" she says, lifting her brows.
"How do you know I have been there at all to-day?" says Dorian.
"Oh, because you are always there, aren't you?" says Georgie, shrugging her shoulders, and biting a little flower she has been holding, into two clean halves.
"As you know so much, perhaps you also know why I am always there," says Branscombe, who is half amused, half offended, by her wilfulness.
"No, I don't," replies she, easily, turning her eyes, for the first time, full upon his. "Tell me."
She is quite calm, quite composed; there is even the very faintest touch of malice beneath her long lashes. Dorian colors perceptibly. Is she coquette, or unthinking, or merely mischievous?
"No, not now," he says, slowly. "I hardly think you would care to hear. Some day, if I may—. What a very charming hat you have on to-day!"
She smiles again,—what true woman can resist a compliment—and blushes faintly, but very sweetly, until all her face is like a pale "rosebud brightly blowing."