Really, of all embarrassing situations. If he didn’t get up, she felt that in another minute she would be sprawling there herself. A very ungraceful pose for the portrait: Mrs. George Granville and Her Daughters, prone on the gravel. Women ought not to lie like that anyway, it humps up the sitting-part so obviously. Yet they always do in bathing suits, most candid of all costumes.... Perhaps for that very reason. What queer contradictions there are in good manners. This was too absurd. Thank goodness, he was getting to his feet. The crumb shone in the sunlight, it adhered to his chin with some of Lizzie’s sticky white icing.
“Was the cake good?” She meant this to be rather cutting, and was pleased to see him look a little frightened.
“Awfully good.” Now he looked hopeful, rather like a dog. She could not altogether understand the queer way he had of studying her: steadily, yet without any of the annoying or alarming intimations that long gazes usually suggest. But he made no movement to leave.
“I suppose you’re waiting for another piece.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling.
Now, she felt, she had him trapped. This would destroy him.
“You haven’t finished the first.”
He understood at once, and ran his tongue toward his chin until it found the crumb. She watched it disappear with the feeling of having lost an ally. She had counted on that crumb to humiliate him with.
“All gone,” he announced gaily. What could one do with a man like that?
“I suppose you’re an artist.” Not knowing what else to do she had turned toward the house, and he was walking with her. He was tall and pleasantly dressed and had rather a nice way of walking: politely tentative, yet with plenty of assurance.