“I think you are rather primitive,” I said. “It seems to you a fight between the males. You await the issue. Well—and what’s happened? I hope things are—flourishing now?”
She looked at me with one of her slow-dawning smiles; evidently, for some reason, she was amused at me, or at the question which I had put.
“I’ve spent the greater part of the waking hours of three days with you, Julius. I’ve walked, lunched, and dined with you. I’ve talked to you interminably. You must have looked at me sometimes, haven’t you?”
“I’ve looked at you, to tell the truth, a great deal.”
“And you’ve noticed nothing peculiar?”
“I shouldn’t use the word ‘peculiar’ to describe what I’ve noticed.”
“Not, for instance, that I’ve always worn the same frock?” She was leaning her elbows on the table now, her chin resting between her hands. “And what that means to a charming woman—oh, we agreed on that!—invited out by a fine figure of a man——! And yet you ask if things are flourishing!”
“By Jove, I believe you have! It’s a very pretty frock, Lucinda. No, but really it is!”
“It’s an old friend—and my only one. So let’s speak no evil of it.” Yet she did speak evil of the poor frock; she whispered, “Oh, how I hate it, hate it, this old frock!” She gave a little laugh. “If it came my way, I wonder whether I could resist splendor! Guilty splendor!”
“Didn’t poor old Waldo present himself to you—oddly, I must say—rather in that light? And you resisted!”