"I should think so!" she replied severely. "Will you be so good as to tell me at once what you mean by refusing my niece's invitation to dine?"
He hesitated for a moment, then he smiled. There was something very attractive about his visitor's frank directness of speech and manner.
"I refused," he admitted, glancing around to where the Marquis was engaged in conversation with a gardener, "because I didn't want to come."
"But I am there, you stupid person!" she reminded him. "You are invited to dine with me! I know you don't get on with Lady Letitia, and I know you don't like large parties, but there are only half a dozen of us there, and I promise you my whole protection. Show me something at once. I want to talk to you. Those Dorothy Perkins roses will do, at the other end of the lawn."
He walked in silence by her side. She waited until they were well out of earshot.
"David Thain," she said, "have I shown an interest in you or have I not?"
"You have been extraordinarily kind," he confessed.
"And in return," she continued, "you have decided to avoid me. I won't have it. Are you afraid that I might want you to make love to me?"
He shook his head.
"I am sure you wouldn't find that amusing," he declared. "In the society of your sex I generally behave pretty well as your brother would do if he were dumped down in an office in Wall Street."