Page:Across the Stream.djvu/190

180 seemed to be having with Lord Harlow amused him enormously; not for a moment did he believe that Helena meant anything Lord Harlow was not the only man on whom Helena exercised the perfectly legitimate attraction of her extreme prettiness and her enthusiastic child-like enjoyment

"Oh, every one is so kind and so awfully nice," she said to him one day as they returned from an early morning ride. "I love them all by the handful."

"Including the Bradshaw?" asked he.

"Yes, certainly including the Bradshaw. Don't you like him? He likes you so much."

Archie considered this.

"I don't know if I like him or not," he said. "I don't think I ever thought about it. He doesn't matter. But you matter awfully to him. Did you know that you are the most outrageous flirt, Helena?"

"Archie, how horrid of you!" said she. "Just because I like people, and to a certain extent they like me. Why should I be cross and unpleasant to people, as if it was wicked to like them?"

"Well, if you'll give me long odds I will bet you that the Bradshaw asks you to—to be his 'A B C' before the end of the season," said Archie.

"My dear, what nonsense!" said she, with a sudden thrill of pleasure. "What can have put that into your head?"

"I can see it. That's the way a man like the Bradshaw looks at a girl when his—his affections are engaged. He looks as if a very dear aunt was dead. He has amour triste."

That certainly hit off a type of gaze to which Helena felt that she had been subjected, and she laughed.

"Well, I'll give you five to one in half-crowns," she said.

"Don't. Some day I shall have twelve and sixpence."

They turned and cantered back along the soft track.