He shrugged and smiled whimsically. “It is my way,” he said apologetically. “Nature has made me expectant, and life, whilst showing me the folly of it, has not yet cured me.”
She looked at him, and repeated her earlier question. “Was it at your bidding that Lady Mary came to speak with me?”
“Fie!” he cried. “What insinuations do you make against her?”
“Insinuations?”
“What else? That she should do things at my bidding!”
She smiled understanding. “You have a talent, sir, for crooked answers.”
“'Tis to conceal the rectitude of my behavior.”
“It fails of its object, then,” said she, “for it deludes no one.” She paused and laughed at his look of assumed blankness. “I am deeply beholden to you,” she whispered quickly, breathing at once gratitude and confusion.
“Though I don't descry the cause,” said he, “'twill be something to comfort me.”
More he might have added then, for the mad mood was upon him, awakened by those soft brown eyes of hers. But in that moment the others of that little party crowded upon them to take their leave of Mistress Winthrop.