“Ye-es. I was studying her rather closely. She’s either the most consummate actress or the most out of the ordinary sample of her sex I’ve encountered for a long, long time, if ever.”
“Well, she’s the last, then. If there’s one thing about Nidia Commerell that appeals to me it is that she’s so perfectly natural, and therefore, of course, unconventional.”
“Oh, she does ‘appeal’ to you, then? I rather thought she did,” said Tarrant, serenely. “But you’ve no show, old man. It’s the other Johnny—what’s his name—”
”—Ames.”
”—Yes. He seems to have got the floor just now.”
“As to the first—skittles; as to the last—why do you think so?”
“Didn’t I tell you I was studying her rather closely? When you first mentioned—er—Ames, she just, ever so little, overdid it. You may rely upon it that joker made his hay while the sun shone.”
Moseley burst into a great contemptuous laugh. “Oh, bosh, Dibs! You’ve got the keenest nose for a mare’s nest I ever saw. I tell you that’s Miss Commerell’s way. If she likes any one she doesn’t in the least mind saying so. That alone shows there’s nothing deeper in it.”
“Her way, is it? Oh, well, then, so much the worse for—er—Ames.”
The while those they had just left were comparing opinions upon them.