"All right, darling!" he called back. "Only I must have my reward!"

"When I please!" the young woman said to herself. "And not until."

At dinner, she looked quite pretty, the pink suited her pale skin, and the unusual feminine fluffiness of the garment altered her rather stern appearance. She had not yet begun to employ any art whatever, or to alter the rough bundling up of her hair, but now, out to enjoy herself under the most propitious and rose-coloured circumstances, her strange, sullen eyes shone with a subtle fascination, and her deep voice had tones in it which seduced the ear.

She had never dined with him before, only lunched, and now it behooved her to observe the ways of things, as she was quite ignorant of the art of dining out. Mr. Benjamin Devereux had made advances to her in her first year at Liv and Dev, but she had annihilated him, and withered his proposals for unlimited dinners and a generous settlement with scorn. There had never been a moment when she had contemplated her charms being wasted upon anything but an aristocrat, from whom she could acquire "tone."

No denizen of Bindon's Green—no friend of the family—no companion in the morning train had ever had so much as a kind word, much less the tip of one of her strong white fingers. She was as a bunch of grapes with perfect bloom retained.

She was taking in every line of Lord Algy as she sat there sipping her soup. She had refused oysters, and[Pg 12] had watched him as he devoured his with the joy of an epicure. She had not been quite certain as to which was the right implement to employ. She supposed it was that little fork with the three prongs—but she determined to make no mistakes.

[Pg 12]

It was easy enough to gobble oysters soused in vinegar and red pepper, with huge slices of bread and butter, and a bottle of stout, as her brother Fred was wont to enjoy them at supper on Saturday nights. Or they could be pulled about in the mincing fashion in which his fiancée, that genteel Mabel Cawber, treated them, with little finger daintily curved, and the first and the thumb only in use! but before she, Katherine Bush, swallowed one, she would ascertain exactly how they were eaten in Lord Algy's world! No good out of this trip should be wasted.

As dinner advanced, he began to make more ardent love to her—and the champagne elevated both their spirits. He reproached her for her hardness in not having allowed him to play the part of maid, after 

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