“Not a bit,” said he. “I have a dozen equally well-turned sentences at my disposal, and, they tell me, a most deluding way of saying them.”
Suddenly out of her depth again, poor Lady Alicia could only strike out at random.
“Who tell you?” she managed to say.
“First, so far as my poor memory goes, my mother’s lady’s-maid informed me of the fact; then I think my sister’s governess,” he replied, ticking off his informants on his fingers with a half-abstracted air. “After that came a number of more or less reliable individuals, and lastly the Lady Alicia à Fyre.”
“Me? I’m sure I never said——”
“None of them ever said,” he interrupted.
“But what have I done, then?” she asked, tightening her reins, and making her horse fidget a foot or two farther away.
“You have begun to be a most adorable friend to a most unfortunate man.”
Still Lady Alicia looked at him a little dubiously, and only said, “I—I hope I’m not too friendly.”
“There are no degrees in friendly,” he replied. “There are only aloofly, friendly, and more than friendly.”