“Well, it isn’t,” she said. “You have no reason to be jealous and no right either, you know.”

“Certainly no reason. As for right, we are agreed, are we not? that it would be improper to say more on that head until Conway comes home. You may guess with what interest I perused that column in the newspaper!”

This was said with an arch look which provoked her to exclaim: “Edward! Pray don’t refine too much upon Conway’s homecoming! You’ve fallen into a way of speaking of it as if that would make me ready to fall into your arms, and I wish you will not!”

“I hope—indeed, I am quite sure—that I have never expressed myself in such terms,” he responded gravely.

“No, never!” she agreed, a mischievous smile hovering round her lips. “Edward, do—do ask yourself, before I become so bored with Conway that I shall be ready to snap at any offer, if you really wish to marry me! For I don’t think you do!”

He looked taken aback, even rather shocked, but after a moment he smiled, and said: “I know your love of funning! You are always diverting, and if your sportiveness leads you now and then to say some odd things I fancy I am too well-acquainted with you to believe you mean them.”

“Edward, pray—pray make at least a push to disabuse your mind of illusion!” begged Venetia earnestly. “You can’t know me in the least, if that’s what you think, and what a dreadful shock it will be to you when you discover that I do mean the odd things I say!”

He replied playfully, yet with no diminution of his confidence: “Perhaps I know you better than you know yourself! It is a trick you’ve caught from Aubrey. You do not in general go beyond the line of what is pleasing, but when you talk of Conway it is as if you did not hold him in affection.”

“No, I don’t,” she said frankly.

“Venetia! Think what you are saying!”