'Well?' she answered in the same tone. And she looked at him over the edge of her fan, her eyes laughing.
'How did you sleep, child?' he asked; while he thought, 'Lord! How handsome she is!'
'Perfectly, sir,' she answered, 'thanks to your excellency's kindness.'
Her voice as well as her eyes laughed. He stared at her, wondering at the change in her. 'You are lively this morning,' he said.
'I cannot say the same of you, Sir George,' she answered. 'When you came out, and before you saw me, your face was as long as a coach-horse's.'
Sir George winced. He knew where his thoughts had been. 'That was before I saw you, child,' he said. 'In your company--'
'You are scarcely more lively,' she answered saucily. 'Do you flatter yourself that you are?'
Sir George was astonished. He was aware that the girl lacked neither wit nor quickness; but hitherto he had found her passionate at one time, difficult and farouche at another, at no time playful or coquettish. Here, and this morning, she did not seem to be the same woman. She spoke with ease, laughed with the heart as well as the lips, met his eyes with freedom and without embarrassment, countered his sallies with sportiveness--in a word, carried herself towards him as though she were an equal; precisely as Lady Betty and the Honourable Fanny carried themselves. He stared at her.
And she, seeing the look, laughed in pure happiness, knowing what was in his mind, and knowing her own mind very well. 'I puzzle you?' she said.
'You do,' he answered. 'What are you doing here? And why have you taken up with that lawyer? And why are you dressed, child--'