"I think," says Geoffrey, slightly disconcerted by the sweet leisure of her gaze, "I have lost my way. I have been walking since sunrise, and I want you to tell me where I am."
"You are at Mangle Farm," returns she. Then, judging by the blank expression on his face that her words bring him no comfort, she continues with a smile, "That doesn't seem to help you much, does it?"
He returns her smile in full,—very full. "I confess it doesn't help me at all," he says. "Mangle Farm, I am sure, is the most attractive spot on earth, but it tells me nothing about latitude or longitude. Give me some further help."
"Then tell me where you come from, and perhaps I may be able." She speaks softly, but quickly, as do all the Irish, and with a brogue musical but unmistakable.
"I am staying at a shooting-lodge called Coolnagurtheen. Do you know where that is."
"Oh, of course," returns she, with a sudden accession of animation. "I have often seen it. That is where the young English gentleman is staying for the shooting."
"Quite right. And I am the young English gentleman," says Geoffrey, lifting his hat again by way of introduction.
"Indeed, are you?" asks she, raising her pretty brows. Then she smiles involuntarily, and the pink flush in her rounded cheeks grows a shade deeper. Yet she does not lower her eyes, or show the slightest touch of confusion. "I might have guessed it," she says, after a minute's survey of the tall gray-coated young man before her. "You are not a bit like the others down here."
"Am I not?" says he, humbly, putting on his carefully crestfallen air that has generally been found so highly successful. "Tell me my fault."
"I will—when I find it," returns she, with an irrepressible glance, full of native but innocent coquetry, from her beautiful eyes.