"The nick-name surely explains itself."
"Somebody with an ideal? Somebody above temptation?"
"Precisely."
She pondered over this reply for a moment; then she opened a fresh attack.
"Then why should Lord Deerehurst and Mr. Serracauld have smiled when they spoke of his meeting me?"
Barnard looked up in unfeigned astonishment; then he laughed.
"Upon my word, Mrs. Milbanke," he cried, "you are absolutely unique!"
Clodagh flushed. For one second she wavered on the borderland of offence; then her mood—her sense of the ridiculous and the sunny atmosphere of the morning—conquered. She responded with a laugh.
"I suppose I'm not like other people," she said.
"—For which you should say grace every hour of your life!" Barnard turned and looked into her glowing face. "But I'll satisfy your curiosity. Gore is known in his own set as a man who obstinately—and against all reason—refuses to believe in—well, for instance, in the interesting young married woman."