“But you don’t know the dangers that a young girl of your attraction is exposed to,” he persisted. “You don’t know what sort of brutes men can be, do you?”
“No girl need ever be annoyed—unless she wants to be,” quoted Lydia primly from Aunt Beryl’s wisdom.
“You think so, do you? Now, I wonder if you’ll still say that in three years’ time. Do you know that you are the sort of woman to make either a very good saint or a very good sinner?”
The world-old lure was too potent for Lydia’s youth and her vanity.
“Am I?” she said eagerly. “Sometimes I’ve thought that, too.”
The Greek put his hand upon her, slipping his arm through hers in his favourite manner.
“Tell me about your little self, won’t you?” he said ingratiatingly.
“Always let the other people talk about themselves.”
Oh, inconvenient and ill-timed recollection of Grandpapa’s high, decisive old voice! So vividly was it forced upon the ear of Lydia’s unwilling memory that she could almost have believed herself at Regency Terrace once more. The illusion checked her eager, irrepressible grasp at the opportunity held out by the foreigner. The game was spoilt.
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said abruptly, suddenly grown weary.