Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/66

Rh "Do you like Drayson? I was horribly jealous of his sitting next you at dinner last night."

"He hardly spoke to me," laughed Elizabeth, colouring with pleasure. "He talked chiefly to my aunt. He seems good-natured."

"He is an awful outsider. I positively refuse to sit next to Miss Wargrave to-night. She interferes with my digestion."

"How delicate it must be! I should have thought you would have got on so well together, both so much in London society."

"Get on? The difficulty is to get off. She chokes me. I don't want to hear all that stale London gossip over again down here. I'm sick of it at the clubs. I like something fresher."

"Can nobody be fresh who lives in London?"

"She can hardly be as fresh as you are."

"Fresh is another term for green, isn't it? My aunt says I am much too 'unconventional.

"Don't believe her. It is as good as a pick-me-up to hear you."

Elizabeth laughed. "Some people think I am 'knock-me-down.

"Don't believe 'em," he repeated. Then, after a long pause, "Isn't it a pity that I didn't live three or four hundred years ago?"

"Why? You know I should not have been able to paint you if you had."

"I could have done something then, I suppose. I could have fought in the lists for my lady. But now—what is the use of being big and strong? I can't write books,