“Nineteen and six—are twenty-five,” she said slowly in a low voice, and her eyes stared into their own reflection rather wildly.
CHAPTER V
Brook Johnstone’s people did not come on the next day, nor on the day after that, but he expressed no surprise at the delay, and did not again say that it was a bore to have to wait for them. Meanwhile he spent a great deal of his time with the Bowrings, and the acquaintance ripened quickly towards intimacy, without passing near friendship, as such acquaintance sometimes will, when it springs up suddenly in the shallow ground of an out-of-the-way hotel on the Continent.
“For Heaven’s sake don’t let that man fall in love with you, Clare!” said Mrs. Bowring one morning, with what seemed unnecessary vehemence.
Clare’s lip curled scornfully as she thought of poor Lady Fan.
“There isn’t the slightest danger of that!” she answered. “Any more than there is of my falling in love with him,” she added.
“Are you sure of that?” asked her mother. “You seem to like him. Besides, he is very nice, and very good-looking. ”
“Oh yes—of course he is. But one doesn’t necessarily fall in love with every nice and good-looking man one meets.”