“Hardly that.  But——­”

“Go on.”

“There was a little word or two, you know,” laughing.

“A hint?” laughing too, but how strangely!  “Yes?  And——?”

“Oh! a mere hint!  The professor is too loyal to go beyond that.  I suppose you know you have the best man in all the world for your guardian?  But it was a little unkind of your people, was it not, to give you into the keeping of a confirmed bookworm—­a savant—­with scarcely a thought beyond his studies?”

“He could study me!” says she.  “I should be a fresh specimen.”

“A rara avis, indeed! but not such as the professor’s soul covets.  No, believe me, you are as dust before the wind in his learned eye.”

“You think then—­that I—­am a trouble to him?”

“It is inconceivable,” says he, with a shrug of apology, “but he has no room in his daily thoughts, I verily believe, for anything beyond his beloved books, and notes, and discoveries.”

“Yet I am a discovery,” persists she, looking at him with anxious eyes, and leaning forward, whilst her fan falls idly on her knees.

“Ah!  But so unpardonably recent!" returns he with a smile.

“True!” says she.  She gives him one swift brilliant glance, and then suddenly grows restless.  “How warm it is!” she says fretfully.  “I wish——­”

What she was going to say, will never now be known.  The approach of a tall, gaunt figure through the hanging oriental curtains at the end of the conservatory checks her speech.  Sir Hastings Curzon is indeed taller than most men, and is, besides, a man hardly to be mistaken again when once seen.  Perpetua has seen him very frequently of late.

CHAPTER XI.

    “But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
    Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
    The better reason, to perplex and dash
    Maturest counsels.”

“Shall I take you to Lady Baring?” says Hardinge, quickly, rising and bending as if to offer her his arm.

“No, thank you,” coldly.

“I think,” anxiously, “you once told me you did not care for Sir——­”

“Did I?  It seems quite terrible the amount of things I have told everybody.”  There is a distinct flash in her lovely eyes now, and her small hand has tightened round her fan.  “Sometimes—­I talk folly!  As a fact” (with a touch of defiance), “I like Sir Hastings, although he is my guardian’s brother!—­my guardian who would so gladly get rid of me.”  There is bitterness on the young, red mouth.

“You should not look at it in that light.”

“Should I not?  You should be the last to say that, seeing that you were the one to show me how to regard it.  Besides, you forget Sir Hastings is Lady Baring’s brother too, and—­you haven’t anything to say against her, have you?  Ah!” with a sudden lovely smile, “you, Sir Hastings?”