"Oh, it doesn't amount to anything, really. We just quarrel, that's all, once in a while."
She saw that he was nervous and bashful and decidedly unresourceful in her presence and it pleased her to think that she could thus befuddle and embarrass him so much. "Are you still working for your uncle?"
"Oh, yes," replied Clyde quickly, as though it would make an enormous difference to her if he were not. "I have charge of a department over there now."
"Oh, really, I didn't know. I haven't seen you at all, since that one time, you know. You don't get time to go about much, I suppose." She looked at him wisely, as much as to say, "Your relatives aren't so very much interested in you," but really liking him now, she said instead, "You have been in the city all summer, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes," replied Clyde quite simply and winningly. "I have to be, you know. It's the work that keeps me here. But I've seen your name in the papers often, and read about your riding and tennis contests and I saw you in that flower parade last June, too. I certainly thought you looked beautiful, like an angel almost."
There was an admiring, pleading light in his eyes which now quite charmed her. What a pleasing young man—so different to Gilbert. And to think he should be so plainly and hopelessly smitten, and when she could take no more than a passing interest in him. It made her feel sorry, a little, and hence kindly toward him. Besides what would Gilbert think if only he knew that his cousin was so completely reduced by her—how angry he would be—he, who so plainly thought her a snip? It would serve him just right if Clyde were taken up by some one and made more of than he (Gilbert) ever could hope to be. The thought had a most pleasing tang for her.
However, at this point, unfortunately, the car turned in before Mrs. Peyton's door and stopped. The adventure for Clyde and for her was seemingly over.
"That's awfully nice of you to say that. I won't forget that." She smiled archly as, the chauffeur opening the door, Clyde stepped down, his own nerves taut because of the grandeur and import of this encounter. "So this is where you live. Do you expect to be in Lycurgus all winter?"
"Oh, yes. I'm quite sure of it. I hope to be anyhow," he added, quite yearningly, his eyes expressing his meaning completely.
"Well, perhaps, then I'll see you again somewhere, some time. I hope so, anyhow."