"I'm of the opinion, Miss Allonby," said he, with a mouth sterner than his eyes, "that if the Honorable Claud Cranmer finds you so interesting when you're worn out with waking and fasting, you'll be simply irresistible after a good night's rest."
The girl had vanished almost before this dreadful remark was concluded. The doctor chuckled as he watched her flight.
"There's girls and girls," he remarked, sententiously; "some take to their heels when you joke them about the men. Some don't. I thought she'd go."
"I had rather," said Claud, nettled, "that you indulged your humor at anyone's expense but mine."
"Oh, that'll never hurt you," said the doctor, placidly, rubbing his eye-glasses with his red silk handkerchief, "nor her either. Young people get so fine-drawn and finikin now-a-days."
Claud smiled.
"I perceive, doctor, that you do not hold with the modern ideas concerning introspection. You are a refreshing exception. I regret that I was born a generation too late to adopt your habits of thought."
"Habits of thought! Why, t'would trouble you mighty little to adopt all I've got," was the genial reply. "I've avoided all habits of thought all my life, and that's what makes me so useful a man. I just think what I think without referring to any book to tell me which way to begin. Hoot! I'd never think on tram-lines, as you do: I go clean across country, that's my way, and I'm bound to get to the end long before you, in your coach-and-four.
"Yes," conceded Claud, "I expect you would; that is, if you didn't come a cropper on the way."