She shook her head.
"I am only too glad that you do like me," she answered, with a smile. "I don't seek to know the cause."
"Well, you appeal to me for many reasons," said Rupert Haverford, "but particularly because you are about the only woman I know who has not insisted on finding me a wife. It is such an absurd idea if one stops to think about it," he said lightly; "one chooses one's own servants, one does not go running about to one's friends to ask them if a particular man is likely to be a good coachman or butler or gardener; but in the matter of a wife everybody seems to consider that he or she has a right to choose for another person."
Mrs. Brenton smiled, but only faintly.
"I believe I am just as bad at match-making as most people," she said; "you must not endow me with unknown qualities."
They drifted into silence after this.
It was pleasant to Rupert Haverford to sit and watch Mrs. Brenton's comely hands busying themselves with the knitting.
She wore a few good rings, but for the rest her gown was old-fashioned, not to say shabby, and she had no other jewellery except an insignificant brooch or two.
He was quite in earnest when he said that she was the one person out of all his new acquaintances whom he liked the best.
There was something so thorough about her. He could quite believe the stories of her prowess as a sportswoman and a hard rider to hounds; and yet she was very womanly.