Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/252

 when it had become obvious that Tallis was waiting for him to continue the conversation.

"No, I don't," was the calm retort.

"Then why" began Beresford.

"Because I've known you long enough to be convinced that you're incapable of doing what to any one else is the most obvious thing in the world."

"You don't know her."

"I'm beginning to suspect that you don't either," was the dry retort.

"She was just good pals with me at Folkestone, because I was a sort of watch-dog," said Beresford reminiscently. "Since then she has dropped me—gone away," he added.

"She's probably become self-conscious owing to auntie having given her a wigging. You can always trust a woman to know how to touch another on the raw. A high-spirited girl suffers a good deal when told that she's made herself cheap. In all probability that's what her aunt managed to convey."

Beresford shook his head gloomily. Tallis merely shrugged his shoulders.

"You didn't see the way she looked through all those fellows at the Imperial," he said, as if determined to convince himself of the hopelessness of his position. "It used to wither them, all except that Jew chap with the Scotch name. He was too moist for anything to wither."

"Well, are you going to ask her to marry you?"