He started as if to speak, but his answer remained unuttered; the man’s lips closed tighter; a moment he watched the small gloved hand, then his gaze turned to the gray sky.

“So you see, I call compliments, compliments,” she ended lightly.

He offered no comment; the horses moved on; suddenly she looked at him.  One of those odd changes she had once or twice noticed before had come over John Steele; his face appeared too grave, too reserved; she might almost fancy a stormy play of emotion behind that mask of immobility.  The girl’s long lashes lowered; a slightly puzzled expression shone from her eyes.  It may be she had but the natural curiosity of her sex, that her interest was compelled, because, although she had studied this man from various standpoints, his personality, strong, direct in some ways, she seemed unable to fathom.  The golden head tilted; she allowed an impression of his profile to grow upon her.

“Do you know,” she laughingly remarked, “you are not very interesting?”

He started.  “Interesting!”

“A penny for your thoughts!” ironically.

“They’re not worth it.”

“No?”

He bent a little nearer; she swept back the disordered lock; an instant the man seemed to lose his self-possession.  “Ah,” he began, as if the words forced themselves from his lips, “if only I might—­”

What he had been on the point of saying was never finished; the girl’s quick glance, sweeping an instant ahead, had lingered on some one approaching from the opposite direction, and catching sight of him, she had just missed noting that swift alteration in John Steele’s tones, the brief abandonment of studied control, a flare of irresistible feeling.

“Isn’t that Lord Ronsdale?” asked the girl, continuing to gaze before her.

A black look replaced the sudden flame in Steele’s gaze; the hand holding the reins closed on them tightly.

“Rather early for him, I fancy,” she said, regarding the slim figure of the approaching rider.  “With his devotion to clubs and late hours, you know!  Do you, Mr. Steele, happen to belong to any of his clubs?”

“No.”  He spoke in a low voice, almost harshly.

Her brow lifted; his face was turned from her.  Had he been mindful he might have noted a touch of displeasure on the proud face, that she regarded him as from a vague, indefinite distance.

“Lord Ronsdale is a very old friend of my uncle’s,” she observed severely, “and—­mine!”

Was it that she had divined a deep-seated prejudice or hostility toward the nobleman hidden in John Steele’s breast, that she took this occasion to let him know definitely that her friends were her friends?  “Even when I was only a child he was very nice to me,” she went on.

He remained silent; she frowned, then turned to the nobleman with a smile.  Lord Ronsdale found that her greeting left nothing to be desired; she who had been somewhat unmindful of him lately on a sudden seemed really glad to see him.  His slightly tired, aristocratic face lightened; the sunshine of Jocelyn Wray’s eyes, the tonic of youth radiating from her, were sufficient to alleviate, if not dispel, ennui or lassitude.