Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/26

 "No," she said airily," they talk to me. You see, they are all so fond of Ronny."

"No doubt," said Frank, curtly and significantly.

"But I pretend not to hear. Stay—there is one man whom I talk to—"

"Who is he?" said Frank grimly, and looking straight between the horses' ears.

"Oh, nobody in particular," said Fenella, rather faintly, "but you see he has a small nephew here, and it seems he and Ronny met at the Grandisons' in the country, and are quite old friends. So the barrister and I have got quite pally."

Frank sat mute as a fish.

"He is of the type I rather admire," she said, with a suspicious note in her voice. "You know, Frank," she lifted a naïvely impudent, grave little face to his, "I always did like a dark, clean-shaven man!"

Frank himself was as dark and clean-shaven as it was possible to be, and the corners of his mouth trembled at her audacity, as he turned away.

"He told me such a delicious story yesterday," she went on, her face breaking up into dimples. "It was about a little girl upon whose mother a horrid old woman was calling. When the old woman got up to depart, she said to the child, 'You'll come and see me, my dear, won't you?' 'Oh, yes!' said the child, 'But you don't know