The tone was careless and full of good-nature, and his face as sunny as the bright sky overhead. Alice did not look up at him, but kept her eyes fixed on the distance. To one given to minute observation it might have occurred that as she did not glance at him when he spoke she must have been aware of his approach, and must have seen him when she came out from the house. That she had not shown her knowledge of his nearness was to be looked upon as an indication of something which was not indifference. "Good-morning," she answered. "May didn't seem to be in particularly good spirits." "Didn't she? I must try to find time to run in and cheer her up. I'm not used to being engaged, you see, and I'm not up in my part." He spoke with a sort of swagger which was obviously intended to tease her, and the heightened color in her cheeks told that it had not missed the mark. "I have no doubt that you will soon learn it," she returned. "You were always so good in amateur theatricals." He laughed boisterously, perhaps a little nervously. "'Praise from Sir Hubert,'" he quoted. "And speaking of engagements, is it proper to offer congratulations on yours?" She turned to him with a look of indignant severity. "You know I am not engaged, and that I don't mean to be." "Oh, that's nothing. I didn't mean to be the other day." "I am not in the market," she said cuttingly. "Neither am I any more," Jack retorted coolly. "I've sold myself. That's what they mean, I suppose, by saying a girl has made her market." Alice had grown more and more stern in her carriage as this talk proceeded. Jack's tone was as flippant as ever, and he carried his handsome head as jauntily as if they were talking of the merriest themes. His brown eyes were full of a saucy light, and he switched his walking-stick as if he were light-heartedly snapping off the heads of daisies in a country lane. The more severe Alice became the more his spirits seemed to rise. As they halted at a corner to let a carriage pass Alice turned and looked at her companion, the hot blood flushing into her smooth cheek. "There is nothing in the world more despicable than a fortune-hunter!" she declared with emphasis. "Oh, quite so," Jack returned, apparently full of inward laughter. "Theoretically I agree with you entirely. Practically of course there are allowances to be made. The Count has been brought up so, and you mustn't be too hard on him." "You know what I mean," she said, unmoved by the cunning of his speech. "Yes, of course I can make allowances for you. You mean, I suppose, that as long as you know he's really after you and not your money you can despise public opinion; but naturally it must vex you to have the Count misjudged. Everybody will think Miss Wentstile hired him to marry you." She parted her lips to speak, then restrained herself, and altered her manner. She turned at bay, but she adopted Jack's own tactics.