"I'd have met him with pleasure," Basil reminded her.
"It would be fatal to do anything he didn't wish," she answered. "He's a man who knows exactly what he wants, and hates to have people go against his directions in the smallest things."
Norman looked at her rather anxiously through the soft summer darkness that was hardly darkness. She was walking beside him with her hands clasped behind her back and her head bent. He thought her extremely pretty, and wondered if Somerled thought so too. But he wished that she did not care quite so much what Somerled thought. And he was not sure whether she were right about what Somerled liked.
"I wonder if we understand Somerled?" he asked, as if he were questioning himself aloud. "After all, we don't know him very well."
"I do," Aline said. "I know him like a book. He's bored to death with everything nearly. Only I—we—haven't bored him yet. And we must take care not to."
"You could never bore anybody," Basil assured her loyally. "But—I wish you'd tell me something honestly, old girl."
"Not if you call me that!" She laughed a little. "It wouldn't matter if I were twenty-five instead of—never mind! I don't want people to think, when they hear you, 'Many a true word spoken in jest.'"
"Somerled's older than you are, anyhow," Basil consoled her.
"I should think so—ages! Don't forget, dear, I'm only just thirty. I don't look more, do I—truly?"
"Not a day over twenty-eight."