"Did you give him my invitation?"
"I told him he was not to accept it," said Florence. "Oh, dear me, mother, don't be silly. But, I say, what a nice lobster, and I am so hungry."
CHAPTER VII.
THE CHAINS BEGIN TO FRET.
Meanwhile Trevor went slowly back to the hotel. He had enjoyed his talk with Florence; he liked her brusque way, she did not flatter him, and she was, he considered, a particularly attractive-looking girl. In Mrs. Aylmer's society he was made a great deal of and fussed over, and when that happens to a young man he always enjoys the sort of girl who snubs him by way of contrast. He thought Mrs. Aylmer the less one of the most extraordinary women he had ever met; but as he liked Florence, and was in the mood for a bit of an adventure, he would gladly have accepted her mother's invitation to supper if she had not tabooed it.
"You are not to come," said Florence, looking at him with her wide-open frank dark eyes; "mother is the soul of hospitality, but we are very poor: we have nothing proper to give you for supper, and I for one would much rather you did not come."
"I do not in the least mind what I eat," he said, in a somewhat pleading tone, and he looked full at Florence with his blue eyes.
"Nevertheless, you are not to come; it is only my mother's way: she always goes on like that with strangers. I never allow people to accept her invitations."