Howard turned to her delightedly.
"My dear Miss Falconer, if you were a man I should ask to shake hands with you. It so exactly describes him. That"s just what he is. As handsome as the dew--I beg your pardon!--as frank as a boy, as gentle as a woman, as staunch, as a bull-dog, as brave--he would have stopped a drayman"s team just as readily as yours last night--and as invulnerable as that marble statue."
He pointed to a statue of Adonis which stood whitely on the edge of the lawn, and she raised her eyes and looked at it dreamily.
"I could break that thing if I had a big hammer," she said.
"I daresay," he said. "But can"t break Stafford. Honestly "--he looked at her--"I wish you could!"
"Why?" she asked, turning her eyes on him for the first time.
Howard was silent for a moment, then he looked at her with a curious gravity.
"Because it would be good for him: because I am afraid for him."
"Afraid?" she echoed.
"Yes," he said, with a nod. "Some day he will run against something that will bring him to smash. Some woman--But I beg your pardon. Do you know, Miss Falconer, that you have a dangerous way of leading one to speak the truth--which one should never--or very rarely--do. Why, on earth am I telling you all this about Stafford Orme?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"You were saying "some woman,"" she said.
He gave a sigh of resignation.
"You are irresistible! Some woman who will be quite unworthy of him.
It"s always the case. The block of ice you can not smash with your biggest hammer is broken into smithereens by a needle. That"s the peril before Stafford--but let us hope he will prove the exception to the rule and escape. He"s safe at present, at any rate."
She though of the scene she had witnessed, the girl sitting sideways on Stafford Orme"s horse, and her face flushed for an instant.
"Are you sure?" she said.
"Quite!" he responded, confidently. "I know all Stafford"s flirtations, great and small: if there was anything serious he would tell me; and as he hasn"t--there isn"t."
She laughed; the slow, soft laugh which made Howard think suddenly, strangely, of a sleepy tigress he had once watched in a rajah"s zoo, as she lay basking in the sun: a thing of softness and beauty and--death.
"We"ve had a most amusing conversation, Mr. Howard," she said. "I don"t know when I"ve been so interested--or so tempted."
"Tempted?" He looked at her with a slow, expectant smile.
"Oh, yes," she murmured, turning her eyes upon him with a half-mocking light in them. "You have forgotten that you have been talking to a woman."
"I don"t deny it," he said. "It"s the finest compliment I could pay you. But--after?"
"And that to a woman your account of your hero-friend is--a challenge."
He nodded and paused, with his cigar half-way to his lips.
"I"m greatly tempted to accept it, do you know!" she said.
He laughed.
"Don"t: you"ll be vanquished. Is that too candid, too--brutal?" he said.
"So brutal that I _will_ accept it," she said. "Is that ring of yours a favorite?"
"I"ve had it ever since I can remember. It was my mother"s," he said, rather gravely.
She held out her hand, upon which the costly gems glittered in the sunlight.
"Choose one to set against it," she said quite quietly.
Howard, roused for once from his sleepy cynicism, met her gaze with something like astonishment.
"You mean--?" he said, in a low voice.
"I mean that I am going to try to meet your iceberg. You will play fair, Mr. Howard? You will stand and look on and--be silent?"
He smiled and leant back as if he had considered her strange, audacious proposal, and felt confident.
"On my honour," he said, with a laugh. "You shall have fair play!" She laughed softly. "You have not chosen my stake," she said meaningly.
"Ah, no. Pardon! Let me see." He took her hand and examined the rings.
"This--I think it"s the most valuable."
"It does not matter," she said. "You will not win it. May I look at yours?"
He extended his hand with an amused laugh; but without a smile, she said:
"Yes, it is a quaint ring; I like quaint things. I shall wear it on my little finger."
She dropped his hand quickly, for at that moment Stafford rode round the bend of the drive. His face was grave and almost stern in its preoccupation, but he caught sight of them, and raised his hat, then turned his horse and rode up to the terrace.
"Good-morning, Stafford," exclaimed Howard. "Where have you been?
Hallo! Anything happened? You"re coated all over with mud: had a fall?"
He nodded carelessly as he turned to the beautiful girl, lying back now and looking up at his handsome face with an air of languid indifference.
"What a lovely day, Miss Falconer! Where are all the others? Are you not going for a drive, on the lake, somewhere?"
"I have just been asking Mr. Howard to take me for a row," she said, "but he has refused."
Stafford laughed and glanced at his watch.
"I can quite believe it: he"s the laziest wretch in existence. If you"ll transfer the offer to me, we"ll go after lunch. By George, there"s the bell!"
"Thanks!" she murmured, and she rose with her slow grace. "I"d better get into an appropriate costume. Mr. Howard, what will you bet me that it does not rain before we start. But you never bet, you tell me!"