"All the other girls are terribly afraid of you," she continued. "I'm not."
"Of me?" He looked at her in surprise, as if he regarded himself as the last person in the world to inspire fear.
"They say you glare at them." She smiled a wicked little smile that she called "the rouser." As John Dene did not reply Marjorie continued: "They call you 'the bear.'"
"Rojjie!" gasped Dorothy in horror.
"The bear?" repeated John Dene. "Why?"
"Oh, but I am going to tell them you're not," said Marjorie, nibbling at a biscuit and looking across at John Dene appraisingly. "I think you're really rather nice."
John Dene glanced across at Dorothy, as if unable quite to classify the girl before him.
"Of course they don't know that you can smile like that," added Marjorie.
John Dene was about to make some remark when there came another knock.
"Come," he cried, and a moment later the door opened and Sir Lyster entered, followed by a tall, sedate-looking man with a bulging forehead and ragged moustache.