"I defy Steve to feel as young as I feel now," he asserted with a gallant promptness which delighted her.
At supper she devoted herself to him. He laughed and jested with her and but for his white hair looked almost as young as his son. Steve, angered by her persistent avoidance of himself, broke into their conversation with a banality which caused his father to look at him in amazed incredulity.
"Are you enjoying New York, Miss Glamorgan?"
Jerry regarded him for a moment from under long lashes before, with a smile which she was sure made him want to shake her, she answered:
"Immensely; but this is not my first winter in the city. Dad and I have made our headquarters here since I grew up." She turned to his father, but Steve refused to be ignored.
"Do you like it?"
"Like it? I love it! It's so big, so beautiful and—and—and so faulty," her pose of indifference had fallen from her like a discarded veil; she was all eager enthusiasm. "I—I like to be where there are many people. I would starve for companionship, not food, in the wilderness." Steve raised his brows and smiled unsmilingly.
"Then you believe in love?"
The color burned over her face to her scornful eyes. "He is willing to marry for money yet he dares sneer at me about love," she thought angrily, even as she looked up and deliberately studied him. She laughed a gay little, mocking laugh.
"Believe in love? Of course I believe in love; don't you? But what an absurd question to ask. As though you would champion the tender passion." She saw his eyes darken and his jaw set before she turned to his father. She was contrite, a little frightened. What had possessed her to antagonize him like that? A poor way to begin a partnership which she had hoped would develop into a real friendship.