"Oh, bosh!"
"Captain Selwyn!"
"I beg your pardon," he said sulkily; and fumbled with his reel.
She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side—the very incarnation of youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire for tormenting. Never before had she experienced that desire so keenly, so unreasoningly; never before had she found such a curious pleasure in punishing without cause. A perfectly inexplicable exhilaration possessed her—a gaiety quite reasonless, until every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter and quickening with the desire for his torment.
"When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was only a yearling," she observed. "Now I'm a two-year, Captain Selwyn. . . . Who can tell what may happen in my second season?"
"You said that you were not the—the marrying sort," he insisted.
"Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a bib and banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don't do it now; I've advanced. It's probably part of that progress which you are so opposed to."
He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new leader.
"All progress is admirable," she suggested.
No answer.