As she says this she looks at him with the prettiest smile; it is a
mixture of amusement and defiance. Hardinge, gazing at her, draws
conclusions. ("Perfectly _hates_ him," decides he.)

It seems to him a shame, and a pity too, but after all, old Curzon
was hardly meant by Nature to do the paternal to a strange and
distinctly spoiled child, and a beauty into the bargain.

"I don't think your guardian will have a good time," says he,
bending over her confidentially, on the strength of this decision of
his.

"Don't you?" She draws back from him and looks up. "You think I
shall lead him a very bad life?"

"Well, as _he_ would regard it. Not as I should," with a sudden,
impassioned glance.

Miss Wynter puts that glance behind her, and perhaps there is
something--something a little dangerous in the soft, _soft_ look
she now turns upon him.

"He thinks so, too, of course?" says she, ever so gently. Her tone
is half a question, half an assertion. It is manifestly unfair, the
whole thing. Hardinge, believing in her tone, her smile, falls into
the trap. Mindful of that night when the professor in despair at her
untimely descent upon him, had said many things unmeant, he answers
her.