‘Will you, Brion?’ she asked eagerly; and he took his first lesson in woman’s incomprehensibility.
‘Leave it to me,’ he said, frowning. ‘Yet I marvel at your wish to return where you suffered such rudeness.’
‘Did you take me for the poor maid’s ghost? I wonder would she have laughed to have her chin so tickled.’
‘Hush!’ said Brion, horrified. ‘It is not good to talk of the unhallowed dead so lightly.’
The girl assumed a gravity.
‘I will not, then. Yet be sure I feared you more than any sucking-bear or cockatricks.’
His solemnity broke in a sputter of laughter.
‘O, Joan!’ he cried.
‘What have I said?’
‘Did you mean succuba and cockatrice?’