"What a pity!" she sighed. "It would have been so instructive."
"In the small amenities of daily life," he said thoughtfully, "in what one of our writers calls the insignificant arts, women seem inevitably to excel. They always appear to do better, in fact, in the narrower circles. Directly they step outside, a certain lack of breadth becomes noticeable."
"Dear me!" she murmured. "It's a good thing I'm not one of these modern ladies who stand on a tub in Hyde Park and thump the drum for votes. I should be saying quite disagreeable things to you, Mr. Thain, shouldn't I?"
"You couldn't be one of those, if you tried," he replied. "You see, if I may be permitted to say so, nature has endowed you with rather a rare gift so far as your sex is concerned."
"Don't be over-diffident," she begged. "I may know it, mayn't I?"
"A sense of humour."
"When a man tells a woman that she has a sense of humour," Letitia declared, "it is a sure sign that he—"
She suddenly realised how intensely observant those steely grey eyes could be. She broke off in her sentence. They still held her, however.
"That he what?"
"Such a bad habit of mine," she confided frankly. "I so often begin a sentence and have no idea how to finish it. Ada," she went on, addressing Mrs. Honeywell, "has Mr. Thain taught you how to become a millionairess?"