“You have no nurse, no maid!” he exclaimed, in amazement. “No,” she replied with great _sangfroid_, “I like a free hand, and no woman can have that, with a female detective tripping up her heels, and wearing her silk stockings. And I love to wait on Ronny--to wash and dress him, and make him look sweet. Of course,” she added anxiously, “he isn’t _always_ clean--the dirtier a boy is, the nicer he is--but he is _perfectly_ happy! You should see us run down the hill to the Pump-room, though everyone has done long before we get there! And then we eat _such_ a breakfast. We’ve got a dear little fat waiter who simply devotes himself to us, and steals for us all the newest eggs! But he had an awful accident yesterday,” said Fenella, turning tragic eyes on Frank, “what do you think it was?” “He fell in love with you?” Fenella began to laugh in that low gurgle which was so like the sound of a cheerful, over-full brook. “Do you remember you said that about my hairdresser? And how I said I thought it would really have come cheaper in the end if I _had_ married him? I always thought that rather neat myself. But I never told you what the accident was. He broke four hundred plates yesterday!” “Very greedy of him if he did it all at once.” “It _was_ all at once. The strap of the lift broke as he was hauling them up!” “Poor devil!” said Frank absently. They were quite away from the houses now, and the brisk, pure air, the pleasant scents from the hedgerows, and the swift movement to the music of the horses’ feet, and perhaps some other sources of satisfaction within, brought a light to Fenella’s eyes, and a rose-soft color to her cheek that made her altogether enchanting and sweet. “And pray,” said Frank, looking at her eagerly, unwillingly, as at forbidden fruit that sorely tempted him, “do you _talk_ to any of the fellows at the hotel?” “No,” she said airily, “they talk to me. You see, they are all so fond of Ronny.” “No doubt,” said Frank, curtly and significantly. “But I pretend not to hear. Stay--there is _one_ man whom I talk to----” “Who is he?” said Frank grimly, and looking straight between the horses’ ears. “Oh, nobody in particular,” said Fenella, rather faintly, “but you see he has a small nephew here, and it seems he and Ronny met at the Grandisons’ in the country, and are quite old friends. So the barrister and I have got quite pally.” Frank sat mute as a fish. “He is of the type I rather admire,” she said, with a suspicious note in her voice. “You know, Frank,” she lifted a naïvely impudent, grave little face to his, “I always _did_ like a dark, clean-shaven man!” Frank himself was as dark and clean-shaven as it was possible to be, and the corners of his mouth trembled at her audacity, as he turned away.