"Oh! you rather enjoyed it, did you?" p.r.i.c.king up her ears. "I thought you never could be bothered to enjoy anything."

"I can't say I put myself out much over this."

"Are there any nice girls there?"

"Yes."

"Many?"

"Two."

"So ho!" impressively. "Yet I didn't think country b.u.mpkins were much in your line."

"One of them is as good-looking as you."

"Is she dark?" with a little pout.

"No, fair."

"Umph--Insipid?"

"No, good."

"Good!" she echoed in a tone of laughing derision. "How amusing! Have you really been able to find entertainment in a goody-goody girl?"

"I didn't say 'goody-goody.'"

"Well, you implied it, and that's the same thing."

"Not in this case."

"And I say it is. We'll change the subject. Goody-goody girls don't interest me in the least. What's the other like?"

"Like you."

"Like me!"--in surprise. "Then she's pretty, too?"

"No. On the whole she is plain."

"You wretch! I protest she is not in the least like me!"

"And I tell you she is."

"But how?"

"In manner and ways."

"My dear Lawrence, you are talking nonsense. Do you mean to tell me that after my Parisian education, and presentation in London, and year of travel, and the gayeties of India, I resemble a little, countrified Irish girl?"

"I said that she resembled you, which is quite a different thing."

"Well, go on."

"She is quite your equal at repartee. She has quite your number of admirers, though they may not be of the same social position, and she treats them with precisely the same disdain."

"I hate her," said Gwendoline pettishly.

"That is exactly what she said about you."

Gwen sprang up. "Oh, she did, did she!" she exclaimed, "and pray why!"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do. Don't try and back out of it now, after telling me that much. What have you been saying to her about me!"

"I haven't been saying anything."

Gwen clenched her hand and bit her teeth together.

"In two minutes I shall shake you. There is nothing either funny or clever in being exasperating."

"I am sorry," he replied, with imperturbable humour. "If you will tell me what you want to know, I will try to enlighten you."

"Then 'why' and 'when' did this country b.u.mpkin say she hated me!"

"The incident took place in a sanctum at Mourne Lodge, known as my den, upon the evening when Kathleen and Doreen 'came out.'"

"And what was she doing in your den, pray, in the middle of a dance!"

Gwen spoke peremptorily. She had somehow, unconsciously, grown to consider Lawrence her property, although there had never been anything but good-fellowship between them. Ever since she was ten and he was twenty she had ordered him about, and Lawrence, while teasing her, had usually acquiesced because she amused him.

"To the best of my recollection she was playing with my foreign swords."

"And how could that have anything to do with me?"

"She chanced to weary of the swords, and on a voyage of further discovery came across your photograph, in the place of honour, on my desk."

A pleased gleam pa.s.sed through her eyes.

"Ah!" she said, "and she was angry because she is in love with you."

"On the contrary, she hates me even more than you."

Owen frowned and looked incredulous.

"Now you are talking riddles again--how silly you are! If she hates you, why did she go into your den, and why was she angry with me? I believe you are making the whole thing up."

"I am not. I do not think she spoke half a dozen civil words to me after the dance, and when I came away she would not shake hands. She told me she much preferred my room to my company."