"What a charming dream!" he commented lazily. "But you know what happened to Daphne when she ran away, don't you?"
She flung him a laughing challenge. "He didn't catch her anyway."
"True!" smiled Sir Eustace. "But have you never wondered whether it wouldn't have been more sport for her if he had? It wouldn't be very exciting, you know, to lead the life of a vegetable."
"It isn't!" declared Dinah, with abrupt sincerity.
"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" he said. "Then the modern Daphne ought to have too much sense to run away."
She laughed with a touch of wistfulness. "I wonder how she felt about it afterwards."
"I wonder," he agreed, tipping the ash off his cigarette. "It didn't matter so much to Apollo, you see. He had plenty to choose from."
Dinah's wistfulness vanished in a swift breath of indignation. "Really!" she said.
He looked at her. "Yes, really," he told her, with deliberation. "And he didn't need to run after them either. But, possibly," his gaze softened again, "possibly that was what made him want Daphne the most. Elusiveness is quite a fascinating quality if it isn't carried too far. Still--" he smiled--"I expect he got over it in the end, you know; but in her case I am not quite so sure."
"I don't suppose he did get ever it," maintained Dinah with spirit. "All the rest must have seemed very cheap afterwards."
"Perhaps he was more at home with the cheap variety," he suggested carelessly.
His eyes had wandered to the buzzing throng behind her, and she saw a glint of criticism--or was it merely easy contempt?--dispel the smile with which he had regarded her. His mouth wore a faint but unmistakable sneer.
But in a moment his look returned to her, kindled upon her. "Are you for the ice carnival to-night?" he asked.
She drew a quick, eager breath. "Oh, I do want to come! But I don't know--yet--if I shall be allowed."
She hesitated, then ingenuously she told him her difficulty. "I got into trouble last night for dancing so late with you. And--and--I may be sent to bed early to make up for it."
He frowned. "Do you mean to say you'd go?"
She coloured vividly. "I'm only nineteen, and I have to do as I'm told."
"Heavens above!" he said. "You belong to the generation before the last evidently. No girl ever does as she is told now-a-days. It isn't the thing."