“Oh, you suit me admirably,” she said, turning and smiling squarely into his face; “only the terrible ‘and’ of the majority does get on my nerves somewhat.”

“What ’and’?”

“Haven’t you noticed?  Why when an American runs out of talking material he just rests on one poor little ‘and’ until a fresh run of thought overwhelms him; you listen to the next person you’re talking with, and you’ll hear what I mean.”

Jack reflected.

“I will,” he said at last.

The road went sweeping in and out among a thicket of bare tree trunks and brown copses, and the sunlight fell out of the blue sky above straight down upon their heads.

“If it don’t annoy you, my referring to England so often,” said she presently, “I will state that this reminds me of Kaysmere, the country place of my father-in-law.”

“Is your father-in-law living yet?”

“Dear me, yes—­and still has hold of the title that I supposed I was getting when I was married to his eldest son.  My father-in-law is a particularly healthy old gentleman of eighty.  He was forty years old when he married.  He didn’t expect to marry, you know—­he couldn’t see his way to ever affording it.  But he jumped into the title suddenly and then, of course, he married right away.  He had to.  You’d know what a hurry he must have been in to look at my mamma-in-law’s portrait.”

“Was she so very beautiful?”

“No; she was so very homely.  Maude’s very like her.”

Jack laughed.

She laughed, too.

“Aren’t we happy together?” she asked.

“My sky knows but one cloud,” he rejoined, “and that is that Monday comes after Sunday.”

“But we shall meet again,” said Mrs. Rosscott.  “Because,” she added mischievously, “I don’t suppose that it’s on account of my cousin Maude that you rebel at the approach of Monday.”

“No,” said Jack.  “It may not be polite to say so to you, but I wasn’t in the least thinking of your cousin.”

“Poor girl!” said Mrs. Rosscott thoughtfully; “and she was so sweet to you, too.  Mustn’t it be terrible to have a face like that?”

“It must indeed,” said Jack; “I can think of but one thing worse.”

“What?”

“To marry a face like that.”

She laughed again.

“You’re cruel,” she declared; “after all her face isn’t her fortune, so what does it matter?”

“It doesn’t matter at all to me,” said Jack.  “I know of very few things that can matter less to me than Miss Lorne’s face.”

“Now, you’re cruel again; and she was so nice to you too.  Absolutely, I don’t believe that the edges of her smile came together once while she was talking to you last night.”

“Did you spy on us to that extent?” said Jack.  “I wouldn’t have believed it of you.”

“Oh, I’m very awful,” she said airily.  “You’ll be more surprised the farther you penetrate into the wilderness of my ways.”