“Didn’t you? Well, I apologise. May I?”

She could not help laughing.

“You evidently mean to; and I suppose you usually have your own way.”

“Very often. That’s sensible of you. Of course you are sometimes annoying sensible and practical. I don’t know that I ever liked any one quite so level-headed before. It never appealed to me. Yet, somehow, I think you could lose your head. You’ve got it in you to do so. I wouldn’t give tuppence for a woman who hadn’t.”

Hal was silent, and, as usual, he pressed his point.

“Do you think you could lose your head?”

“I don’t think I shall,” was the evasive answer.

“I wonder,” he said.

She felt him looking hard into her face, and moved restlessly beneath a scrutiny that quickened her pulses and warmed her blood in a way that was altogether new. Then suddenly she looked up.

“Don’t you think we are rather talking drivel? Let’s get back to the original subject. I don’t want to lose my head—it’s rather a nice one—sound and reliable and all that.”