She looked up. There was no flush of gratification on her face, only a very slight—the slightest possible—sparkle in the beautiful eyes.
“Yes,” she said quietly; “I believe I can dance well.”
Despard bit his lips. For once in his life he felt absolutely at a loss what to say. Yet remain silent he would not, for by so doing it seemed to him as if he would be playing into the girl’s hands.
“I will make her talk,” he vowed internally.
It was not often he cared to exert himself, but he could talk, both intelligently and agreeably, when he chose to take the trouble. And gradually, though very gradually only, Miss Fforde began to thaw. She, too, could talk; though her words were never many, they struck him as remarkably well chosen and to the point. Yet more, they incited him to further effort. There was the restraint of power about them; not her words only, but her tone and expression, quick play of her features, the half-veiled glances of her eyes, were full of a curious fascination, seeming to tell how charming, how responsive a companion she might be if she chose.
But the fascination reacted as an irritant on Mr Norreys. He could not get rid of a mortifying sensation that he was being sounded, and his measure taken by this presumptuous little girl. Yet he glanced at her. No; “presumptuous” was not the word to apply to her. He grew almost angry at last, to the extent of nearly losing his self-control.
“You are drawing me out, Miss Ford,” he said, “in hopes of my displaying my ignorance. You know much more about the book in question, and the subject, than I do. If you will be so good as to tell me all about it, I—”
She glanced up quickly with, for the first time, a perfectly natural and unconstrained expression on her face.
“Indeed—indeed, no,” she said. “I am very ignorant. In some ways I have had little opportunity of learning.”
Despard’s face cleared. There was no question of her sincerity.