"You surely do not fancy that you can make it rise."
"I do," he said confidently.
Marion looked at him scornfully, but it was an assumed scorn; as to herself she admitted a fondness for assurance like Duncan's. Florence Moreland would have called it presumption, but Marion felt that it indicated a strong nature worthy of careful analysis. Her manner was often the naïveté of inexperience. She fancied that she knew the world, but her knowledge was theoretically culled from her yellow-covered romances. She frequently allowed men a freedom of speech which might be misunderstood at times, and excused herself by the thought that such carelessness became a woman of the world. She courted admiration because she felt it to be her due, and in her search for experiences of the world she often displayed an artlessness which was singularly liable to be misinterpreted by the men with whom she came in contact.
Just inside the door on the right of the hall was a wee room decorated in Louis Quinze style, and into this they went. Delicate and cozy, with a polished floor, a leopard's skin rug, soft tinted walls, white and gold woodwork, a tiny open fire, a brocade screen, a chair or two and a tête-a-tête seat,—it was, in fact, a delightful expression of Marion's taste.
"Charming," said Duncan as he sat down opposite Marion on the tête-a-tête and looked about him.
"I am glad something pleases you," she replied as she threw aside her jacket. "Your assurance amazes me," she continued. "Last night you told me you had been about collecting bits of gossip about me in order to understand my character, and now you coolly inform me that you are capable of influencing my feelings. I ought to detest you."
Duncan silently looked with his large, grey eyes into her face for a moment and then said, "I wish you would."
"Why?" she questioned wonderingly.
"Because we might end by being friends."
"A repellent manner of attracting, certainly," she replied.