Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/102

 flippancy. On the contrary, he gave her a look of appreciation from his fine dark eyes and laughed apologetically. "Well, you see, a habit more than two thousand years old—it is a little difficult to change! Would you consent to teach us, Miss Ambler?"

She instantly returned his glance, and then looked out over the sea. "You wouldn't pay much attention, I'm afraid," she said, with just the right proportions of amusement and wistfulness that she had learned to put into her voice when she wished gentlemen to be interested in finding out what she felt about them.

"No?" he said; and he responded perfectly to the sentimental mechanism she had set in motion. "If you will teach I fear I would pay no attention to anything else."

"Wouldn't you?" she asked, suddenly grave and sweet.

"Never! I never would!"

"Wouldn't you?" she said again, in a low voice. And with that she turned her head and gave him a quick, wondering look, a little startled, that seemed to say, "Will it be you—some day?"

This bit of performing was by no means all spurious—it was a mixture, being partly spontaneous and genuine, in spite of herself, as it always was when she