I protest." "That protest is one of the quaintest things I've ever heard," Isabel answered with a smile.
Lord Warburton was briefly silent.

"You judge only from the outside--you don't care," he said presently.

"You only care to amuse yourself." The note she had heard in his voice a moment before reappeared, and mixed with it now was an audible strain of bitterness--a bitterness so abrupt and inconsequent that the girl was afraid she had hurt him.

She had often heard that the English are a highly eccentric people, and she had even read in some ingenious author that they are at bottom the most romantic of races.

Was Lord Warburton suddenly turning romantic--was he going to make her a scene, in his own house, only the third time they had met?
She was reassured quickly enough by her sense of his great good manners, which was not impaired by the fact that he had already touched the furthest limit of good taste in expressing his admiration of a young lady who had confided in his hospitality.