“Even!” she echoed. “Even you!”
“It’s a great concession for me to make—” he said, slowly—and his whimsical smile lighted up his whole face in an attractive manner. “But I make it freely! I find you a very lovable, charming little lady—wilful certainly, yet not unpleasantly so. Sometimes you and I have disagreed—have nearly quarrelled, in fact—but this has given zest to my feelings, and deepened your own charm. Dear me! My pipe has gone out!” He fumbled for his matches, found them, and re-lit his malodorous briar. “Yes—er!—what was I saying?—Deepened your own charm,—yes!—quite true. Therefore you must not be surprised if I rather object to your wasting so much of your sweetness on the desert air,—the desert air being a figure of speech for the dry and dusty personality of Mr. Durham,—and find him distinctly in the way.”
A mischievous twinkle sparkled in Sylvia’s eyes. She pointed a small finger at him.
“You are jealous!” she said.
“Jealous?” He ruminated. “You think so? I have never, to my knowledge, experienced the sensation,—but you may be right! It would be curious and—er—interesting! You may perhaps recall that once—once upon a time—in this very garden—you asked me if I would like you to marry Jack Durham,—and I believe I answered, ‘Not just yet.’ You were very kind to me in those days—much kinder than you are now. I suppose you had not perceived my bad points. Anyhow, when I said ‘Not just yet’—as applied to young Durham, I would say the same again, only more emphatically, with regard to old Durham—”
She rose from her chair amazed.
“Mr. Craig!” Her voice thrilled with vexation and hurt. “How can you imagine—”
“That old Durham might wish to marry you and leave you the vast fortune he is rumoured to possess?” finished the Philosopher, placidly. “Nothing more natural and simple, his son being dead—”
She put up her hands to her ears.