She sipped the Burgundy in her glass, and frowned a little, “Ah!” She set down the half-empty glass, and her host filled it again. It was the second time. “You lead me to suppose, sir, that what you did yesterday was in the nature of wolf-scaring?”
“Would you call it that?” Sir Anthony filled his own glass very leisurely. “I had thought it more in the nature of disabling the wolf.”
“If you like. Then what I suspected was truth indeed?” She looked steadily at him, with some dignity in her glance.
“That depends, young man, on what your suspicions were.”
“I thought, sir, that you had intervened — quite incomprehensibly — on my behalf.”
“But why incomprehensibly?” inquired Sir Anthony.
This was something of a check. “Well, sir, I believe I am not, after all, just out of the nursery, though it pleases you to think so. I’m grateful for the kindliness of the action, but — frankly, Sir Anthony, I had rather be given the chance to prove my mettle.”
There came a fleeting look of admiration into the eyes that rested so enigmatically on her face, but it was so transient an expression that she doubted she had been mistaken. “I compliment you, boy. But prove your mettle on one nearer your own age.”
She bowed, and for form’s sake sipped at her wine again. A dish of nuts was pushed towards her; she chose one and cracked it without having recourse to the silver crackers in the dish. A boy’s trick, and she hoped the large gentleman noted it well.
The indolent voice continued. “Though to be sure I’d an idea your mettle had been proved already. You’ve had an engagement before this.”