“I don’t know that Uncle Percival is exactly a person of talent,” she observed, “he plays very badly, I believe.  Can’t I drop you somewhere?  Do let me.”

He shook his head with a quizzical humour.  “To tell the truth horses make me nervous,” he returned.  “I’m afraid of them—­You never know what intentions they have in mind.  No, I’ll walk, thank you.”  His gaze was on her and she saw his eyes flash with admiration of her beauty.

“Oh, your dreadful, soulless automobiles!” she exclaimed, with disgust.  “By the way, Laura hates them—­she says they have the devil’s energy without his intellect.”

He laughed indifferently.  “Does she?  I’ll teach her better.”

Gerty looked back to protest as she stepped into her carriage.  “But you’ll never have a chance,” she said.

“I’ll make one,” he persisted, gayly.

From the midst of her fur rugs she leaned out with a provoking little laugh, while he watched her green eyes narrow in an arch and fascinating merriment.  “What would you say if I told you she was at home all the time?” she asked.  Then before he could remonstrate or reply, she rolled off leaving him transfixed and questioning upon the sidewalk.

Was Laura Wilde really at home?  The suspicion piqued him into a curiosity he could not satisfy, and because he could not satisfy it he found himself dwelling with a reawakened interest upon the woman who had avoided him.  If she had in truth refused to receive his visit it could mean only that she entertained a dislike for his presence, and for a dislike so evident there must be surely some foundation either in fact or in intuition.  No woman, so far as he could remember—­and so unusual an occurence would not easily have slipped his memory—­had ever begun his acquaintance with a distinctly expressed aversion, and the very strangeness of the experience was not without attraction for his eager and dominant temperament.  What a queer little oddity she was, he thought as he glanced up at the grave old house before turning rapidly away—­as light and sensitive as thistle-down, as vivid as flame.  He tried to recall her delicately distinguished figure and profound dark eyes, but her charming smile seemed to come between him and her features, and her face was obscured for him in a mysterious radiance.  Her features taken in themselves were plain, he supposed, certainly they were not beautiful, yet of her whole appearance his memory held only the fervent charm of her expression.  It was a face with a soul in it, he though—­all the mystery of flame and of shadow was in her smile, so what mattered the mere surface modelling or the tinting of the skin which was less ivory than pale amber.  An hour ago he had been absolutely indifferent, almost forgetful of her existence, but his vanity if not his heart was stung now into an emotion which had in it something of the primitive barbarian ardour of pursuit.  He cared nothing—­less than nothing—­for Laura Wilde herself, yet it was not in his nature that he should suffer in silence before a sudden and unreasonable affront.