"Curious?" she exclaimed, with a flash of her eyes. "Curious, indeed! And why should I be curious about your concerns, if you please?" And she spoke the word again with a laugh of scorn, "Curious!"
Said I, "The word gains no force from repetition."
Dorothy Curwen gasped with indignation.
"A very witty and polite rejoinder, upon my word," she said slowly, and began to repeat that remark too, but broke off at the second word.
For a little we were silent. Then she plucked a reed of grass and bit it pensively.
"No!" she said indifferently, "since my father has lived quietly at Applegarth, I have lost my interest in politics."
"It was no question of politics at all!" I exclaimed, and—
"Oh!" she exclaimed, swinging round to me with all her indifference gone.
"No," I went on, but reluctantly, for I was no longer sure that I ought to tell her, and quibbled accordingly. "There was some one in Keswick for whom I had news which would not wait."
"News of your escape?" she interposed, with a certain constraint in her voice.