He broke off, frowning a little. "Still we're comfortable enough," he resumed.
"I should think so. You'd always have it to look at anyhow. What did you think I should be like?"
"Anything in the world but what you are."
The tone was at once too sincere and too absent for a compliment. Cecily knew herself not to be plain; but he was referring to something else than that.
"In fact I hardly thought of you as an individual at all. You were the Gainsboroughs."
"And you didn't like the Gainsboroughs?" she cried in a flash of intuition.
"No, I didn't," he admitted.
"Why not?"
"A prejudice," answered Harry Tristram after a pause.
She crossed her legs, sticking one foot out in front of her and looking at it thoughtfully. He followed the movement and slowly broke into a smile; it was followed by an impatient shrug. With the feminine instinct she pushed her gown lower down, half over the foot. Harry laughed. She looked up, blushing and inclined to be angry.