He raised his brows. “There's no pleasing you, sweetheart. What can I find to say about the boy-friend?”
“You can leave Deryk alone! He and I are engaged to be married.”
A malicious glint came into his eyes. “Oh, is that still on?”
She reddened, hesitated for a moment, and then said bluntly: “Now look here, Randall! If you think you're getting a rise out of me you're mistaken. I suppose you've got hold of some silly, exaggerated story about Deryk and the Fosters. You would! It's perfectly true that he partnered Maisie Foster to the Hopes' dance, but considering I couldn't go, and he's known Maisie quite as long as he's known me, I'm not—strangely enough—jealous about it.”
Randall's smile broadened. “I seem to have got a better rise out of you than I had hoped for, darling. This is all news to me.”
She bit her lip. “Then what were you hinting at?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing!” said Randall airily. “Tell me more of this rival. Where does she live?”
“She lives on Park Terrace, and she is not a rival.”
He opened his eyes. “It sounds very promising. An extremely well-to-do locality. I hope she's an only child?”
She was spared the necessity of answering by the arrival of her brother, who at this moment came along the landing from his own room. Randall promptly transferred his attention to him, and said with an assumption of artless surprise: “Well, well! Can it really be my little cousin? Are you now a gentleman of leisure, Guy, or has the firm of Brooke and Matthews gone into liquidation?”