"Well, of course; who could help it?"
"If I were a man I should not try to help it; I should be prouder of the love of such a girl than of anything under heaven."
Such conversations are not common between young unmarried people, but neither of these two seemed to consider it strange that they should so talk; for, indeed, Annie Brunel assumed towards Will an amusingly matter-of-fact, kindly, almost maternal manner—so much so that, without hesitation she would have told him that a little more attention to the brushing of his rough brown hair and moustache might not have been inappropriate before visiting a lady. Sometimes he was amused, sometimes tantalized by this tone. He was a man verging towards thirty, who had all his wits about him, who had seen plenty of the world, and knew far more of its ways and beliefs and habits than he would have liked to reveal to his companion then beside him; and he could scarcely refrain from laughing at the airs of superior worldly wisdom which the young actress gave herself, revealing in the assumption the charming simplicity of her character.
They walked down one of the long avenues and crossed over into Hyde Park. The Row was very full at this time; and the brightness of the day seemed to have awoke an artificial briskness among the melancholy men and plethoric girls who had come out for their forced exercise.
"I have been in nearly every capital in Europe," said Will to his companion, "and I have never seen such a company of handsome men and women as you may see here almost any day. And I never saw anywhere people out to enjoy themselves looking so intensely sad over it."
"These are my employers;" said Miss Brunel, with a smile on her pale dark face. "These are the people who pay me to amuse them."
"Look at this big heavy man coming up now," said Will. "Look how he bobs in his saddle; one doesn't often see such a—— Why, it is——"
"Count Schönstein," said Miss Brunel.
It was. And as the Count came up and saw Will walking by the side of a closely-veiled and gracefully-dressed young lady, he took off his hat in his finest manner, and was about to ride on. Perhaps it was the luxuriant black hair or the graceful figure of the young girl which made him pause for a second and recognise her. At all events, he no sooner saw who she was than he stopped his horse, clumsily got down from the saddle, and drawing the reins over the animal's head, came forward to the railing.
"The very two people whom I wished to see," he observed, with a pompous magnanimity. (Indeed there were several reasons why he was glad just then to observe that Annie Brunel had taken kindly to the young man whom he had introduced to her.) "Do you know, Miss Brunel, that Melton is going to close his theatre for a month?"