“Thank you, miss,” he said, and touched his cap in the proper manner.
He did not look gracious or grateful, but he began to put it in a small pocket in the breast of his worn corduroy shooting jacket. Suddenly he stopped, as if with abrupt resolve. He handed the coin back without any change of his glum look.
“Hang it all,” he said, “I can't take this, you know. I suppose I ought to have told you. It would have been less awkward for us both. I am that unfortunate beggar, Mount Dunstan, myself.”
A pause was inevitable. It was a rather long one. After it, Betty took back her half-sovereign and returned it to her bag, but she pleased a certain perversity in him by looking more annoyed than confused.
“Yes,” she said. “You ought to have told me, Lord Mount Dunstan.”
He slightly shrugged his big shoulders.
“Why shouldn't you take me for a keeper? You crossed the Atlantic with a fourth-rate looking fellow separated from you by barriers of wood and iron. You came upon him tramping over a nobleman's estate in shabby corduroys and gaiters, with a gun over his shoulder and a scowl on his ugly face. Why should you leap to the conclusion that he is the belted Earl himself? There is no cause for embarrassment.”
“I am not embarrassed,” said Bettina.
“That is what I like,” gruffly.
“I am pleased,” in her mellowest velvet voice, “that you like it.”