He looked straight before him, with a detached air.

"Yes," said Letty, thoughtfully; "it was a curious coincidence,
wasn't it?"

There was a moment's silence. Then she broke into infectious laughter.

"Don't you know," she said, laying her hand on his shoulder--"don't you
know that you're a most foolish and wasteful person? We get along
capitally, you and I--we've had a rattling time all this week--and then
you will go and make uncivil remarks about my friends--in public, too!
You actually think I'm going to let you tell Aunt Watton how to manage
me! You get me into no end of a fuss--it'll take me weeks to undo the
mischief you've been making--and then you expect me to take it like a
lamb! Now, do I look like a lamb?"

All this time she was holding him tight by the arm, and her dimpled face,
alive with mirth and malice, was so close to his that a moment's wild
impulse flashed through him to kiss her there and then. But the impulse
passed. He and Letty Sewell had known each other for about three weeks.
They were not engaged--far from it. And these--the hand on the arm, and
the rest--were Letty Sewell's ways.

Instead of kissing her, then, he scanned her deliberately.

"_I_ never saw anyone more plainly given over to obstinacy and pride,"
he said quietly; "I told you some plain facts about the character of a
man whom I know, and you don't, whereupon you sulk all day, you break
all your promises about coming to Malford, and when I come back you call