"We had a gipsy in the family, though no one's ever allowed to mention her," she announced abruptly. "D'you call me pretty? I think you would, rather. Val Arden says I'm the 'haggard Venus.' Well, any looks we've got come from her."
"With a dash of temperament thrown in. Suppose we go a bit faster and then look for a fire? You're quite well enough to dance now."
"But I'd sooner talk to you. A girl told me the other day that you were—what was the word? 'sticky'; you never had anything to say, you were prim and old maidish——"
"I'm no good at ordinary social patter," he interrupted. "But you'd hardly apply that term to our conversation to-night."
They strode incongruously down the broad village street, past the group of expectant chauffeurs and into an ill-ventilated box described as the "reading-room." Both were emotionally out of breath, and the lights of the hotel made Jack self-conscious; he stole a sidelong glance at her and waited for the next change. Wistful appeal passed into effervescent irresponsibility; the self-possession of a woman of the world alternated with the radiant joyousness of a child.... And six months earlier she had left a German Jew's ornate carnival to drive with a sodden debauchee in a stolen car and had impaled an unknown chauffeur on the grey angle of a jutting wall in Hertfordshire. And there was the aeroplane accident; and the poker-party; and a dozen other things.... His glance held admiration as well as curiosity, and she smiled with glowing friendliness.
"Aren't you going to dance at all?" he asked.
"I didn't come here for that.... Now I'm going to pay you a compliment. I got myself invited because I heard you were coming; I wanted to give you a chance of judging me at first hand. There's an opportunity for returning the compliment, if you care to take it."
Jack looked at her with a surprise which he tried to veil, as he reminded himself again that he must be on his guard.
"I only hinted that your friends weren't good enough for you," he answered. "Knowing who you were and the positions your father had held——"