'Oh, past price! Which leads me to suspect that perhaps the poor fellow is in love with her!'
She frowned over this for a moment or two, before saying decidedly: 'It's of no consequence if he is: he is not a proper person for her! Besides, she's by far too young. Surely you must know that!'
'No, I don't. Her mother was about seventeen when she married Rowland.'
'Which proves she is too young!'
He grinned appreciatively, but said: 'You may be right, but you can't expect me to agree with you. After all, I tried to marry Celia myself!'
'Yes, but you were only a boy then. You must be wiser now!'
'Much! Too wise to meddle in what doesn't concern me!'
'Mr Calverleigh, it should concern you!'
'Miss Wendover, it don't!'
'Then, if you've no interest in your nephew, why do you
mean to linger in Bath? Why do you hope he means to return here?'
'I didn't say I had no interest in him. I own, I didn't think I had, but that was before I knew he was making up to your niece. You can't deny that that provides a very interesting situation!'
'Excessively diverting, too!'
'Yes, that's what I think.'
She said despairingly: 'I see that I might as well address myself to a gate-post!'
'What very odd things you seem to talk to!' he remarked. 'Do you find gate-posts less responsive than eels?'
She could not help smiling, but she said very earnestly: 'Promise me one thing at least, sir! Even though you won't inter vene in this miserable affair, promise me that you won't promote it!'
'Oh, readily! I am a mere spectator.'
She was obliged to be satisfied, but said in somewhat minatory accents: 'I trust your word, sir.'
'You may safely do so. I shan't feel any temptation to break it,' he replied cheerfully.
Feeling that this remark showed him to be quite irreclaimable, Abby walked on in silence, trying to discover why she allowed herself to talk to him at all, far less to accept his escort. No satisfactory answer presented itself, for although he seemed to be impervious to snubs she knew that she could have snubbed his advances if she had made any real effort to do so. After a half-hearted attempt to convince herself that she endured his escort and h
is conversation with the sole object of winning his support in her crusade against his nephew she found herself to be under the shameful necessity of admitting that she enjoyed both, and – far worse! – would have suffered considerable disappointment had he announced his intention of leaving Bath within the immediate future. She could only suppose that it was his unlikeness to the other gentlemen of her acquaintance which appealed to her sense of humour, and made it possible for her to tolerate him, for there was really nothing else to render him acceptable: he was neither handsome nor elegant; his manners were careless; and his morals non-existent. He was, in fact, precisely the sort of ramshackle person to whom no lady of birth, breeding, and propriety would extend the smallest encouragement. He had nothing to recom mend him but his smile, and she was surely too old, and had too much commonsense, to be beguiled by a smile however attractive it might be. But just as she reached this decision he spoke, and she glanced up at him, and realised that she had overestimated both her age and her commonsense. He was smiling down at her, and, try as she would, she was incapable of resisting the impulse to smile back at him. It was almost as if a bond existed between them, which was tightened by his smile. In repose his face was harsh, but the smile transformed it. His eyes lost their cold, rather cynical expression, warming to laughter, and holding, besides amuse ment, an indefinable look of under standing. He might mock, but not unkindly; and when he discomfited her his smiling eyes conveyed sympathy as well as amusement, and clearly invited her to share his amusement. And, thought Abby, the dreadful thing was that she did share it. He seemed to think that they were kindred spirits, and the shocking suspicion that he was right made her look resolutely ahead, saying: 'Yes, sir? What did you say?'
Quick to hear the repressive note in her voice, he replied meekly: 'Nothing, I assure you, to which you could take the least exception! In fact, no more than: I wish you will tell me. Upon which you turned your head, and looked up at me so charmingly that the rest went out of my mind! How the devil have you contrived to escape matrimony in all the unnumbered
years of your life?'
An unruly dimple peeped, but she answered primly: 'I am very well content to remain single, sir.' It then occurred to her that this might lead him to suppose that her hand had never been sought in matrimony, which, for some reason unknown to herself, was an intolerable misapprehension, and she destroyed whatever quelling effect her dignified reply might have had upon him, by adding: 'Though you needn't suppose that I have not received several eligible offers!'
He chuckled. 'I don't!'
Blushing rosily, she said, trying to recover her lost dignity: 'And if that is what you wished me to tell you –'
'Oh, no!' he interrupted. 'Until you smiled so enchantingly I thought I knew. But you aren't old cattish – not in the least!'
'Oh! ' gasped Abby. 'Old cattish? Oh, you – you – I am nothing of the sort!'
'That's what I said,' he pointed out.