"Always," she said, "since I was a child. Was that why you were afraid of me?"
"Afraid?" he said; and then he looked at her almost with a recurrence of his first fright, till her laugh reassured him. "Yes I was frightened," Lord Montjoie said; "you looked so--so--don't you know? I was struck all of a heap. I suppose you came to-day? We were all on the outlook from something the Contessa said. You must be clever to get in without anybody seeing you."
"I was far more clever than that," said Bice; "you don't know how clever I am."
"I dare say," said Lord Montjoie, admiringly, "because you don't want it. That's always the way."
"I am so clever that I have been here all the time," said Bice, with another laugh so joyous,--"so jolly," Montjoie said, that his terrors died away. But his surprise took another development at this extraordinary information.
"By Jove!" he cried, "you don't mean that, Miss--Mademoiselle--I am so awfully stupid I never heard--that is to say I ain't at all clever at foreign names."
"Oh, never mind," cried Bice; "neither am I. But yours is delightful; it is so easy, Milord. Ought I to say Milord?"
"Oh," cried Montjoie, a little confused. "No; I don't think so--people don't as a rule."
"Lord Montjoie, that is right? I like always to know----"
"So do I," said Montjoie; "it's always best to ask, ain't it, and then there can be no mistakes? But you don't mean to say _that_? You here yesterday and all the time? I shouldn't think you could have been hid. Not the kind of person, don't you know."
"I can't tell about being the kind of person. It has been fun," said Bice; "sometimes I have seen you all coming, and waited till there was just time to fly. I like leaving it till the last moment, and then there is the excitement, don't you know."
"By Jove, what fun!" said Montjoie. He was not clever enough, few people are, to perceive that she had mimicked himself in tone and expression. "And I might have caught you any day," he cried. "What a muff I have been."
"If I had allowed myself to be caught I should have been a greater--what do you call it? You wear beautiful things to do your smoking in, Lord Montjoie; what is it? Velvet? And why don't you wear them to dinner?--you would look so much more handsome. I am very fond myself of beautiful clothes."