"Well, I think I should be rather hard to please if I found Nutley dull," he said gaily. "But if you do, why do you stay?" "Perpetual amusement isn't in a companion's contract, Mr. Harry. Besides, I'm fond of Vivien. I should be sorry to leave her before the natural end of my stay comes." "The natural end?" "Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled with a good-humoured scorn at his homage to pretence. "Well, of course, girls do marry. It's been known to happen," said Harry, neither "cornered" nor embarrassed. "But perhaps"--he glanced at her, wondering whether to risk a snub. His charm, his gift of gay impudence, had so often stood him in stead and won him a liberty that a heavy-handed man could not hope to be allowed; he was not much afraid--"Perhaps you'd be asked to stay on--in another capacity, Miss Vintry." "It looks as if your thoughts were running on such things." She did not affect not to understand, but she was not easy to corner either. "I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, a confession without much trace of penitence. "Mine don't often; and they're never supposed to--in my position." "Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, Miss Vintry. Why, a girl like you, with such--" "Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry." "You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how limited my powers are." Harry Belfield could no more help this sort of thing than a bird can help flying. In childhood he had probably lisped in compliments, as the poet in numbers. In itself it was harmless, even graceful, and quite devoid of serious meaning. Yet it was something new in his relations with Isobel Vintry; though it had arisen out of a desire to dispel that mysterious atmosphere, yet it was a sequel to it. Hitherto she had been Vivien's companion. In that brief session of theirs--alone together by the lake--she had assumed an independent existence for him, a vivid, distinctive, rather compelling one. The impressionable mind received a new impression, the plastic feelings suffered the moulding of a fresh hand. Harry, who was alert to watch himself and always knew when he was interested, was telling himself that she was such a notable foil to Vivien; that was why he was interested. Vivien was still the centre of gravity. The explanation vindicated his interest, preserved his loyalty, and left his resolve unshaken. These satisfactory effects were all on himself; the idea of effects on Isobel Vintry did not occur to him. He was not vain, he was hardly a conscious or intentional "lady-killer." He really suffered love affairs rather than sought them; he was driven into them by an overpowering instinct to prove his powers. He could not help "playing the game"--the rather hazardous game--to the full extent of his natural ability. That extent was very considerable.