"So you look on me as a highwayman?" laughed the young Englishwoman, merrily. "I assure you I had no desire to rob you of—"
"You misunderstand me," he interrupted, looking a little annoyed. "I did not think of applying the image—a stupid one, I admit—to you. As a matter of fact, I never write fiction. What I do write, for personal reasons, I do not put my name to; and, consequently, consider myself quite at liberty to repudiate."
The gong sounded for luncheon at this moment, and Sir Mordaunt rose and came up to his sister. He was a tall man, with rather too small a head for his height, but remarkably well built, and with that indefinable air of high breeding which is a gift of the gods, bestowed now and again upon the low-born, but not to be purchased nor transmitted; depending neither upon the traditions of Eton nor the tailoring of Poole or Johns. He had a frank, intelligent face, with indications of possible but transient explosion, in the quick flash of the eye, and occasional contraction of the brow. But he was more disposed to smile than to scowl through life. His laugh, and his way of speaking, strongly marked by what Americans call "the English accent," resembled his sister's; and there all likeness between them began and ended. Miss Ballinger's personality, to a close observer, conveyed a sense of reserved force under that light manner and readily responsive smile which her brother's entirely lacked. As some one expressed it, "all his goods were in his front shop-window." There was nothing to be explored, nothing to be connived at, in a nature affectionate, if not very profound; pleasure-loving, and, as some thought, conceited; quick-tempered, and, as some thought, occasionally impertinent; a nature every fold of which was exposed to the light that revealed its spots, and the accretions of dust that are apt to gather upon goods that are exposed in front shop-windows.
"Come along to luncheon, Grace! I'm as hungry as a hunter. How do you get on with that Yankee? I hope he was as entertaining as my widow. She is perfectly charming. I want you to talk to her. She knows almost as much as you do about pictures and things—and she is awfully amusing."
"I have been listening to her praises from Mr. Ferrars, who, by the bye, is not a Yankee. He is a Southerner by birth, and a cosmopolitan by choice—an odd man, and clever; but I don't feel quite sure whether I like him. All the same, I wish his seat at meals was next me. Mr. Gunning, with his narrow little mind centred on himself, is such a bore."
"Mrs. Courtly tells me he is 'a dude,' and tremendously rich. They think no end of him in New York."
"I dare say; but, as his riches don't interest me, I wish I hadn't to sit next him three times a day for the next week. I had so much rather have that nice old man, Senator something, who looks like a portrait by Tintoret, with his white beard."
"What a queer girl you are! always cottoning to old men. Gunning is a good-looking chap; talks a little too much about his yacht and his athletics, and his big game; but I don't think he's half a bad sort."
His sister smiled a subtle, enigmatical smile, and gently pinched her brother's arm, on which she leaned, as they walked along.
"How well I know you, Mordy! You wouldn't judge him so leniently if he were a penniless Englishman—'something in the city.' You are at present resolved to see everything American en beau."