“No; nothing whatever.”
“O! then I suppose I didn’t hate you for it.”
“You dear! What would you have thought of Johnny Dando if he had dared such a thing?”
“Mr Dando? I should have been furious—outrageously furious; and then spoilt all the effect by laughing myself into hysterics, I expect. But it’s too absurd to think of for a moment. He’s much too good-mannered, for one thing.”
“O, Ira!”
“Does that hurt you, Richard? You have insulted me often enough to deserve that toll, dear. Don’t you remember your own words? But, there! It’s very helpful, sometimes, to be taken by storm.”
“I have been very cruel to you, you lovely soft thing.”
Her young arms stole sweetly about my neck.
“How nice to hear your flattery, Richard. You might beat me ten times a day, if you would always end by saying such things to me. And you have the air of believing them. Am I pretty—to you, I mean?”
“As if you didn’t know it.”