"I don't think you know much about thunderstorms," said Clare, after another silence.
"I don't know. It's supposed to be just as well to know about things, isn't it?"
"I dare say," answered Brook, indifferently. "But science isn't exactly in my line, if I have any line."
"What is your line--if you have any?" Clare asked, looking at the ground as she walked, and perfectly indifferent as to his answer.
"It ought to be beer," answered Brook, gravely. "But then, you know how it is--one has all sorts of experts, and one ends by taking their word for granted about it. I don't believe I have any line--unless it's in the way of out-of-door things. I'm fond of shooting, and I can ride fairly, you know, like anybody else."
"Yes," said Clare, "you were telling me so the other day, you know."
"Yes," Johnstone murmured thoughtfully, "that's true. Please excuse me. I'm always repeating myself."
"I didn't mean that." Her tone changed a little. "You can be very amusing when you like, you know."
"Thanks, awfully. I should like to be amusing now, for instance, but I can't."
"Because I'm boring you to madness, little by little, and I'm awfully sorry too, for I want you to like me--though you say you never will--and of course you can't like a bore, can you? I say, Miss Bowring, don't you think we could strike some sort of friendly agreement--to be friends without 'liking,' somehow? I'm beginning to hate the word. I believe it's the colour of my hair or my coat--or something--that you dislike so. I wish you'd tell me. It would be much kinder. I'd go to work and change it--"
"Dye your hair?" Clare laughed, glad that the ice was broken again.
"Oh yes--if you like," he answered, laughing too. "Anything to please you."
"Anything 'in reason'--as you proposed yesterday."
"No--anything in reason or out of it. I'm getting desperate!" He laughed again, but in his laughter there was a little note of something new to the young girl, a sort of understreak of earnestness.
"It isn't anything you can change," said Clare, after a moment's hesitation. "And it certainly has nothing to do with your appearance, or your manners, or your tailor," she added.
"Oh well, then, it's evidently something I've done, or said," Brook murmured, looking at her.