‘But you love it,’ she answered, studying her fan, ’and I do not love—­Mr. Dunborough!’

Marvelling at her coolness and the nimbleness of her wit, he turned so that he looked her full in the face.  ‘Miss Masterson,’ he said, ’you are too clever for me.  Will you tell me where you learned so much?  ’Fore Gad, you might have been at Mrs. Chapone’s, the way you talk.’

‘Mrs. Chapone’s?’ she said.

‘A learned lady,’ he explained.

‘I was at a school,’ she answered simply, ’until I was fifteen.  A godfather, whom I never knew, left money to my father to be spent on my schooling.’

‘Lord!’ he said.  ‘And where were you at school?’

‘At Worcester.’

‘And what have you done since?—­if I may ask.’

’I have been at home.  I should have taught children, or gone into service as a waiting-woman; but my father would keep me with him.  Now I am glad of it, as this money has come to me.’

‘Lord! it is a perfect romance!’ he exclaimed.  And on the instant he fancied that he had the key to the mystery, and her beauty.  She was illegitimate—­a rich man’s child!  ’Gad, Mr. Richardson should hear of it,’ he continued with more than his usual energy.  ’Pamela—­why you might be Pamela!’

‘That if you please,’ she said quickly, ’for certainly I shall never be Clarissa.’

Sir George laughed.  ‘With such charms it is better not to be too sure!’ he answered.  And he looked at her furtively and looked away again.  A coach bound eastwards came out of the gates; but it had little of his attention, though he seemed to be watching the bustle.  He was thinking that if he sat much longer with this strange girl, he was a lost man.  And then again he thought—­what did it matter?  If the best he had to expect was exile on a pittance, a consulship at Genoa, a governorship at Guadeloupe, where would he find a more beautiful, a wittier, a gayer companion?  And for her birth—­a fico!  His great-grandfather had made money in stays; and the money was gone!  No doubt there would be gibing at White’s, and shrugging at Almack’s; but a fico, too, for that—­it would not hurt him at Guadeloupe, and little at Genoa.  And then on a sudden the fortune of which she had talked came into his head, and he smiled.  It might be a thousand; or two, three, four, at most five thousand.  A fortune!  He smiled and looked at her.

He found her gazing steadily at him, her chin on her hand.  Being caught, she reddened and looked, away.  He took the man’s privilege, and continued to gaze, and she to flush; and presently, ’What are you looking at?’ she said, moving uneasily.

‘A most beautiful face,’ he answered, with the note of sincerity in his voice which a woman’s ear never fails to appreciate.

She rose and curtsied low, perhaps to hide the tell-tale pleasure in her eyes.  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said.  And she drew back as if she intended to leave him.