She glanced at him with a little smiling criticism of his remark.
“Is it worth while enquiring too curiously into that?” she returned. “Perhaps the good fortune—I take your expression—has been reserved for the man who should deserve it.”
“I can never,” he replied deprecatingly, “do more than try to be worthy of it. But,” he continued, “I was thinking, not of myself, but of the many men who must have been in love with you.”
She laughed. “A very complimentary way, sir, of alluding to the delicate subject of my age.”
“No, no,” he protested. “Alexia, we are neither of us children——”
“And our ages are quite suitable,” she bantered.
“Dearest,” he laid his hand on her arm with a caressing clasp of restraint, “you know I am not alluding to age.”
“I suppose,” she went on, still fencing, “you have now a right to know mine; honestly, eight-and-twenty.”
“That gives,” he said, “at least eight years of admirers.”
She gave a little sigh, and he thought he understood why she had trifled with his question. “Ah, yes.”