"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."
"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking at her.
"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of beauty?"
"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"
"Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he relapses into his unsympathetic mood!
"Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her. And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.
"Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a smoke, and I—I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is, therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."
"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.
"Quite,—utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And—do you mind?"—with a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,—"I want you to come for a little walk with me."
"To the end of the world, with you, would be a short walk," says Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have meant much. "Command me, madam."