“Oh, dear,” she said, “this meal couldn’t be much drearier if we were married, could it?”
“Except,” he returned, unsmilingly, “that then it would be one of a long series.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned,” she answered. “I should leave you on account of your bad temper.”
“If I hadn’t first left you on account of—”
“Of burning the cereal?”
“Of being so infernally irresponsible about it.”
“Oh, that’s the trouble, is it?” she said. “That I did not seem to care? Well, I assure you that I don’t like burnt food any better than you do, but I have some self-control. I wouldn’t spoil a whole evening just because—” A sudden inspiration came to her. Her voice failed her, and she hid her face in her pocket handkerchief.
Riatt leant back in his chair and looked at her, looked at least at the back of her long neck, and the twist of her golden hair and the occasional heave of her shoulders.
The strange and the humiliating thing was that she had just as much effect upon him when he quite obviously knew that she was insincere.
“Why,” he said gently, “are you crying? Or perhaps I ought to say, why are you pretending to cry?”