“Alice, I began to think you had forgotten how to fly into a passion. I see I was mistaken.”
“You were,” defiantly, measuring him from head to foot. “I was mistaken also; I thought you were a gentleman.”
A momentary, almost imperceptible start, and then he replied coldly:
“I thought so, too.”
“But you are not.” A dead silence. “You know it is true.”
“Of course,” he replied icily, “whatever you say is undeniable. Once you told me you despised and detested me; now I am no gentleman. So be it. You have no objection to smoking, as well as I can remember?”
Provoked beyond all bounds by his perfect sangfroid, she said:
“Shall I tell you why you are no gentleman?”
“If it will not be giving you too much trouble,” carefully nursing a newly-lighted match.
“Because you have told Geoffrey. You heard what he said just now?”