“I want to talk to you,” she said simply. “Come!”
“Do you know,” she began playfully, after they were seated, “I have begun to feel a good deal awed in your presence. A man who can perform miracles, you know”—
“Well?” exclaimed Richard, as she hesitated a moment.
“A man who can perform miracles is to be avoided. Just think of poor Trilby and Svengali.”
Richard laughed outright.
“That is a most complimentary remark! If I follow you, you mean that I hypnotized John Fenton. I certainly feel flattered. But, do you know, I begin to suspect that your friend, Miss Van Vleck, will prove a much more successful medium than I?”
They both glanced at Gertrude and John Fenton, who were deep in conversation in the opposite corner of the drawing-room.
“I am very glad that all responsibility for the man’s future has been taken off of my hands,” said Richard. “The fact is, I feel that I have all that I can do to take care of myself.”
He looked into her eyes with an expression in his own that was hardly allowable—even at a musicale.
“How selfish a man is,” Mrs. Percy-Bartlett murmured musingly. “It is almost impossible for him to be a consistent friend to another man. How much less is he able to be a true friend to a woman.”