“Well?”
The woman was the first to break the silence—equally a characteristic feature, a cynic might declare.
“Well?”
The answer was staccato, and not a little pettish. The first speaker smiled softly to herself. She revelled in her power, and was positively enjoying the cat and mouse game, though it might have been thought that long custom would have rendered even that insidious pastime stale and insipid.
“So sorry you have to go,” she murmured sweetly. “But it’s getting late, and you’ll hardly reach home before dark.”
The start—the blank look which overspread his features—all this, too, she thoroughly enjoyed.
“Have to go,” he echoed. “Oh, well—yes, of course, if you want to get rid of me—”
“I generally do want to get rid of people when they are sulky, and disagreeable, and ill-tempered,” was the tranquil reply. But the expression of her eyes, raised full to his, was such as to take all the sting out of her words.
Not quite all, however, for his mind was in that parlous state best defined as “worked up”—and the working-up process had been one, not of hours or of days, but of weeks.
“Well, then, good-bye.” Then, pausing: “Why do you torment me like this, Hermia, when you know—”