"So long as I deserve it," he repeated, with a laugh. "Do you think the time may come when they will deem it well to give me their backs?"
"Not at all!" she replied. "I would have said the same to any one—under similar circumstances."
His eyes studied her—he did not miss the qualifying phrase, but he took it to apply to him as an Englishman.
"If all my Annapolis acquaintances are as glad to have me one of them, as you are," he remarked, "my welcome will not turn my head."
"Are you in search of flattery, or do you honestly want what I think?"
"What you think; by all means, what you think," he said.
"Well, you have it—you cannot persuade me, that one of Sir Edward Parkington's standing, in London, can ever voluntarily become a Colonist. If he does, there must be a cause—and a cause means——"
"What, mademoiselle?"
She shrugged her pretty shoulders, "I do not know, monsieur; but I have a woman's intuition, and it tells me——"