"Consider you fair game?" she said, with her head archly on one side. "That would be arrant poaching. Don't fear, Graydon, I shall never regard any man as game, not even if I should become a fat dowager with a bevy of plain daughters and a dull market."
Grave and silent Mr. Muir leaned back in his chair and laughed so heartily that he attracted attention at the Wildmere table across the room.
"That man doesn't act as if on the brink of failure," thought Miss
Wildmere. "It's all a conspiracy of Arnault with papa."
"You are making game of me in one sense very successfully," Graydon admitted, laughing a little uneasily.
"Oh, in that sense, all men are legitimate game, and I shall chaff as many as possible, out of spite that I was not a man."
"You would make a good one—you are so devoid of sentiment and so independent."
"And yet within a week I think a certain gentleman was inclined to think me sentimental, aesthetic, intense, a victim of ideals and devotional rhapsodies."
"Oh, ye gods! Here, waiter, bring me my dessert, and let me escape," cried Graydon.
"Did you say I was to be ready at five?" she asked, sweetly.
"Yes, and bring down articles of a truce, and we'll sign them in red ink."