"What an idea!" she thought, "and how ungallant he is!"
And yet he had a remarkable power of fascination, though, as Ruth said, he made no effort to please.
He took a seat beside her, and for some time his eyes followed the boat. After a while he said, "And did you manage to get through with The Spanish Gypsy again?"
"Oh no," said Miss Custer. "Didn't you know? The doctor was called into the country."
"Ah! he was?"
"Yes."
"Then you lost your afternoon's entertainment? That must have been a great deprivation."
He turned his head and looked at her with a lingering, exploring gaze that was difficult for her to fathom. How should she answer? He was certainly the only being of his sex who baffled or embarrassed her.
"It was indeed," she returned demurely, and yet with a hope that he might discover that she was but half in earnest. Her eyelids drooped and her lips were curved with a smile. She was pleasurably conscious of his prolonged gaze, and hoped something from it, knowing from much previous experience the power of her beauty.
The silence was very eloquent. He broke it—or intensified it indeed—by repeating from The Gypsy, in a low and remarkably well-modulated voice,