"Is that all? I have a looking-glass, you know."
"And I shall miss you—very much."
She suddenly avoided his eyes, but it was for a second only. Yet Brooks was himself conscious of the significance of that second. He set his teeth hard.
"The days here," he said, slowly, "have been very pleasant. It has all been—such a different life for me. A few months ago I knew no one except a few of the Medchester people, and was working hard to make a modest living. Sometimes I feel here as though I were a modern Aladdin. There is a sense of unreality about Lord Arranmore's extraordinary kindness to me. To-night, more than ever, I cannot help feeling that it is something like a dream which may pass away at any moment."
She looked at him thoughtfully.
"Lord Arranmore is not an impulsive person," she said. "He must have had some reason for being so decent to you."
"Yes, as regards the management of his affairs perhaps," Brooks answered. "But why he should ask me here, and treat me as though I were his social equal and all that sort of thing—well, you know that is a puzzle, isn't it?"
"Well, I don't know," she answered. "Lord Arranmore is not exactly the man to be a slave to, or even to respect, the conventional, and your being—what you are, naturally makes you a pleasant companion to him—and his guests. No, I don't think that it is strange."
"You are very flattering," he said, smiling.
"Not in the least," she assured him. "Now-a-days birth seems to be rather a handicap than otherwise to the making of the right sort of people. I am sure there are more impossibilities in the peerage than in the nouveaux riches. I know heaps of people who because their names are in Debrett seem to think that manners are unnecessary, and that they have a sort of God-sent title to gentility."