"He thinks a great deal. He is one of the most complicated characters I ever knew, and I am not at all sure that I understand him yet, though we have known each other ten years. He is a good friend and a rather indifferent enemy, I should say. His chief apparent peculiarity is that he hates gossip. You will not find it easy to get from him a disagreeable remark about any one. Yet he is not good-natured."
"Perhaps he is afraid to say what he thinks," suggested the young girl.
"I doubt that," answered Arden, with a smile. "He has not a particularly angelic reputation, I believe, but I never heard any one say that he was timid."
"As you pretend to be," added Laura. "Do you know? You have not answered my question. Why were you afraid of me, if you really were?"
Lord Herbert answered one question by another, and the conversation continued pleasantly enough. It was a relief to him to find a young and beautiful girl of his own nationality in surroundings with which neither he nor she were really in sympathy. In the course of half an hour they both felt as though they had known one another a long time. The admiration Arden had felt for Laura at first sight had considerably increased, and she on her side had half forgotten that he was a cripple. Indeed, when he was seated, his deformities were far less noticeable than when he stood or painfully moved about from place to place.
The two talked of a variety of subjects, but, with the exception of the few words spoken about Ghisleri, there was no more reference to personalities for a long time.
"I am keeping you away from the dancing," Arden said at last, as he realised that the room was almost empty and that he had been absorbing the beautiful Miss Carlyon's attention longer than might be pleasant to her.
"Not at all," answered Laura. "I do not dance much."
"Why not? Do you not like dancing?" He asked the question in a tone of surprise.
"On the contrary. But I am not taken out very often—perhaps because they think me a foreigner. It is natural enough."