“But,” said Lady Gwynedd, “he is not going to commit himself to any of us, incredible as it may seem. The one person he stares at sometimes is Joan Fayre, and he only looks at her as if he were curious and wouldn't object to finding out why she treats him so outrageously. He isn't annoyed; he's only curious.”
“He's been adored by salesladies in New York,” said Honora, “and he can't understand it.”
“He's been liked,” Amabel Grantham summed him up. “He's a likable thing. He's even rather a dear. I've begun to like him myself.”
“I hear you are learning to play croquet,” the Duke of Stone remarked to him a day or so later. “How do you like it?”
“Lady Gwynedd Talchester is teaching me,” Tembarom answered. “I'd learn to iron shirt-waists if she would give me lessons. She's one of the two that have dimples,” he added, reflection in his tone. “I guess that'll count. Shouldn't you think it would?”
“Miss Hutchinson?” queried the duke.
Tembarom nodded.
“Yes, it's always her,” he answered without a ray of humor. “I just want to stack 'em up.”
“You are doing it,” the duke replied with a slightly twisted mouth. There were, in fact, moments when he might have fallen into fits of laughter while Tembarom was seriousness itself. “I must, however, call your attention to the fact that there is sometimes in your manner a hint of a businesslike pursuit of a fixed object which you must beware of. The Lady Gwynedds might not enjoy the situation if they began to suspect. If they decided to flout you,—'to throw you down,' I ought to say—where would little Miss Hutchinson be?”
Tembarom looked startled and disturbed.