“You have not been half so nice to me lately as you were the first few days,” he said plaintively in the privacy afforded by the strains of a comb orchestra vigorously conducted at the end of the room. “I must have offended you without meaning it; clumsy fellow that I am!”
“Oh dear no, not at all. It is only that I am getting better, and my natural bad temper is asserting itself. Most people are mild when they are ill,” she replied lightly, but Jack was not so easily silenced.
“That’s not the reason. Saving your presence, you are better tempered, not worse, but there’s a difference all the same. I suppose you don’t like me so well now that you know me better?”
“On the contrary, I like you infinitely more.” Sylvia hesitated a moment, then added with sudden resolution, “I thought you were a very agreeable flirt; you amused me, and I enjoyed being flattered; but now I think you are a real good friend, and I treat you in a different way. One gets tired of compliments, but friendship grows better and better all the time.”
Jack coloured, and was silent. Sylvia wondered if he were offended by the plainness of her words, but when he turned to her again, there was the frank, manly expression in his eyes which she liked most to see.
“May I come and call upon you sometimes in the evening? I shall have no chance of seeing you in the daytime.”
“I should like it very much, but it is not my house, remember, and Aunt Margaret is not fond of young men.”
“But I am terribly partial to old ladies, and I never met the one yet that wasn’t wrapped up in me before we parted. I’ve got a way with old ladies!” said Jack complacently. “There was an old dear in Ireland who managed everyone for miles around, but she was as soft as putty in my hands. The poor girl, her daughter, was not allowed to join in any of the fun that was on hand, and when there was anything special coming on, she’d write pitiful letters and ask me to lunch. I always went—she had very good eyes of her own!—and she’d meet me in the drive, and put me up to what she wanted. By the time the old lady had told me all about her hens, and her servants, and her latest quarrel with her neighbours, and I’d flattered her by saying her rheumatism was the pick of any in the county, she’d be ready to eat out of my hand. And I’d fix up to call for Mollie, and see her safely home after the show was over.”
“Mollie? A pretty name! Is it common in Ireland?”
“It is so. We knew a stack of them at Knock, but Mollie Burrell was the best of the bundle.”