Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/86

 "Because Lord Wrexham is charming."

Milly laughed. The naïve admiration was unexpected, the slightly too respectful air was puzzling. Milly herself was so blasé in regard to the peerage that such an attitude of mind seemed almost provincial. Yet she would have been the first to own that it was the only thing about her enigmatic friend which suggested anything of the kind.

"Sonny says he raves about you."

"It's his funeral." The laugh was honestly gay. "He'll be very disappointed, poor lad."

"Don't fish."

"I never fish in shallow waters, Miss Wren."

"You are the most shameless angler I know. But you do it so beautifully that people don't realize what you are at."

"Unconsciously—say unconsciously," came a flash from the opposite chair.

"So I used to think. Before I really knew you I thought everything you said and did just happened so. But now I am not quite sure that you have not thought everything out beforehand."

"Don't make me out a horror."

"Anyway you are much the cleverest creature I have ever met. You are so deep that there is no fathoming you. Somehow you are not the least ordinary in anything."

Mary abruptly brought the conversation back to Sonny and his friend. The latter, it seemed, had first gazed on the famous Miss Lawrence in New York, at the Pumpernickel Theater, the previous year.

"An American?"