"Well, a kind of clever prettiness."
"You mean smart!"
"Well, smart. Let us be English at all costs."
"I don't see how you can think me smart," she said, with a rueful inflection in her voice.
"Why not?"
"Talking to a strange man as I've done."
At sight of the troubled young face, something that was not exactly suspicion, but which had guarded his manner till now, disappeared. He laughed quite freely, and it was wonderful how the sudden gaiety made him look at once younger and more foreign. He put his hand across and just touched the girl's arm.
"Dear child," said he, "talk to as many strange men as you like. The stranger the better. It's ordinary ones you must be careful about."
"Ordinary ones——?"
"Yes. Beware the Least Common Multiple. Therein lies danger to you. I prophesy it."