'But meantime,' replied his sister, 'you are the most tiresome couple in the world.'
'I wish Mr. Holcroft or some one else would join us,' said Olive, looking round in her saddle.
'Why, it is always Mr. Holcroft!' exclaimed Allan.
'You are so provokingly silent. For more than a mile you have not once spoken to me. It is stupid to be so triste! Surely there is some one else whose society you prefer, or with whom you would be more lively?'
'Olive!' said he, on hearing this blunt and pointed remark—both curiously so for her. 'You are surely not jealous of anyone?' he added.
'Jealous!' echoed the girl, with a strange but affected kind of lazy scorn; 'why should I be so, and of whom?'
'Well may you ask, of whom could you be so?' replied Allan, pointedly—so much so that she coloured; 'though I, of course, matter little to you.'
'Allan, you are very wrong to say so,' said the girl, softly.
'Then I am not quite indifferent to you?' urged Allan, impulsively now; 'you do care for me a little?'
'Certainly—a good deal, if it is any satisfaction to you; but there—don't touch my bridle hand, or you will make my horse shy. How can you be so tiresome!'