"Must a thing be hideous to be respectable?" asks she again, turning her lovely face, crowned with the sunburnt hair, full on his.
"You don't understand me," he says, with some confusion. "I was only saying what an ugly name Dare has."
"Now, do you think so?" wonders Miss Blount, dreamily, "I don't. I can't endure my cousin, as you know, but I really think his name very pretty, quite the prettiest I know, even," innocently, "prettier than Stephen!"
"I'm sorry I can't agree with you," says Stephen, stiffly.
Miss Blount, with her fingers interlaced, is watching him furtively, a little petulant expression in her eyes.
"It seems to me you think more of your absent cousin than of—of anyone in the world," says Gower, sullenly. Fear of what her answer may be has induced him to leave his own name out of the question altogether.
"As I told you before, one always thinks most of what is unpleasing to one."
"Oh, I daresay!" says Mr. Gower.
"I don't think I quite understand you. What do you mean by that?" asks she, with suspicious sweetness.