Frank stared at this unusually generous girl.
"Oh, but you are already paying a very heavy fee for—a very short time. I expect you are one of the amateurs who have all the fine feelings of the professional—finer often, because unconnected with public recognition." He lifted his head and smiled, then became conscious that Miss Whitburn was flying along the country roads at a furious pace.
"Oh, gracious stars! don't think so for a moment about me! I don't know one note from another, but I've got a friend who feels all that, at least I suppose so. I do want you to be—sort of friendly with her, because I've got it all up for her."
"All for your friend? How extraordinary!" said the genius, "but, forgive me for asking, is your horse running away? I'm no good with horses." There was a touch of anxiety in his voice. He heard a rippling laugh near him.
"Don't you like it? I'll pull him in, but it's the pace I like! Suppose, Mr. Weston, you were driving with your—say your intended, would you be afraid for her?"
Mr. Weston turned towards Toney with a look of dismayed surprise.
"I—have not—got one—I really can't say."
"I'm awfully glad, I half feared you might be engaged, you know—— People say you are tremendously run after. If you had been, of course I should have asked her too. You don't mind my saying this, do you? I'm only an Australian girl, and out there we don't mince matters so much as people do here, and I once heard that—that you were going to marry a girl and that she——" Toney cleared her throat. She glanced at the genius whose marble-cut face was lifted towards the sky with a hard strange look on it. No one had ever dared to speak to him about that episode since it happened, and here was a strange girl introducing the subject! The very boldness of it put him off his guard.
"You heard rightly, Miss Whitburn; the only woman I ever loved jilted me, because I was not as nobly born as she was, and now——"
"I expect she's just mad with herself that she was so silly! A hundred to one it was her mother, sort of old pussy cat I shouldn't wonder. Why didn't you ask her again? I should if I were a man! I would not take no, not for Joe!" Toney was so excited that she flicked Colon with her whip and he, to show his surprise, suddenly reared and then bolted forward. The genius turned towards his terrible driver in mute appeal.