"I'm afraid I help you get rid of it, too. I heard Nina warning the children to let you alone occasionally--and I suppose she meant that for me, too. But I only take your mornings, don't I? Nina is unreasonable; I never bother you in the afternoons or evenings; do you know I have not dined at home for nearly a month--except when we've asked people?" "Are you having a good time?" he asked condescendingly, but without intention. "Heavenly. How can you ask that?--with every day filled and a chance to decline something every day. If you'd only go to one--just one of the dances and teas and dinners, you'd be able to see for yourself what a good time I am having. . . . I don't know why I should be so delightfully lucky, but everybody asks me to dance, and every man I meet is particularly nice, and nobody has been very horrid to me; perhaps because I like everybody--" She rode on beside him; they were walking their horses now; and as her silken-coated mount paced forward through the sunshine she sat at ease, straight as a slender Amazon in her habit, ruddy hair glistening at the nape of her neck, the scarlet of her lips always a vivid contrast to that wonderful unblemished skin of snow. He thought to himself, quite impersonally: "She's a real beauty, that youngster. No wonder they ask her to dance and nobody is horrid. Men are likely enough to go quite mad about her as Nina predicts: probably some of 'em have already--that chuckle-headed youth who was there Tuesday, gulping up the tea--" And, "What was his name?" he asked aloud. "Whose name?" she inquired, roused by his voice from smiling retrospection. "That chuckle head--the young man who continued to haunt you so persistently when you poured tea for Nina on Tuesday. Of course they _all_ haunted you," he explained politely, as she shook her head in sign of non-comprehension; "but there was one who--ah--gulped at his cup." "Please--you are rather dreadful, aren't you?" "Yes. So was he; I mean the infatuated chinless gentleman whose facial ensemble remotely resembled the features of a pleased and placid lizard of the Reptilian period." "Oh, George Fane! That is particularly disagreeable of you, Captain Selwyn, because his wife has been very nice to me--Rosamund Fane--and she spoke most cordially of you--" "Which one was she?" "The Dresden china one. She looks--she simply cannot look as though she were married. It's most amusing--for people always take her for somebody's youngest sister who will be out next winter. . . . Don't you remember seeing her?" "No, I don't. But there were dozens coming and going every minute whom I didn't know. Still, I behaved well, didn't I?" "Pretty badly--to Kathleen Lawn, whom you cornered so that she couldn't escape until her mother made her go without any tea." "Was _that_ the reason that old lady looked at me so queerly?" "Probably. I did, too, but you were taking chances, not hints. . . . She _is_ attractive, isn't she?"