She laughed. “You haven’t seemed FANATICALLY appreciative of your opportunities when you have been there; you might have carried her off from Cresson Ingle instead of vice versa. But after all, you AREN’T”—here she paused and looked at me appraisingly for a moment-“you AREN’T the most piratical dash-in-and-dash-out and leave-everything-upside-down-behind-you sort of man, are you?”
“No, I believe I’m not.”
“However, that’s only a SMALL half of the reason,” Miss Elliott went on. “She’s furious on account of this.”
These were vague words, and I said so.
“Oh, THIS,” she explained, “my being here; your letting me come. Impropriety—all of that!” A sharp whistle issued from her lips. “Oh! the EXCORIATING things she’s said of my pursuing you!”
“But doesn’t she know that it’s only part of your siege of Madame Brossard’s; that it’s a subterfuge in the hope of catching a glimpse of Oliver Saffren?”
“No!” she cried, her eyes dancing; “I told her that, but she thinks it’s only a subterfuge in the hope of catching more than a glimpse of you!”
I joined laughter with her then. She was the first to stop, and, looking at me somewhat doubtfully, she said:
“Whereas, the truth is that it’s neither. You know very well that I want to paint.”
“Certainly,” I agreed at once. “Your devotion to ‘your art’ and your hope of spending half an hour at Madame Brossard’s now and then are separable;—which reminds me: Wouldn’t you like me to look at your sketch?”