“You seem proud of it.”
“No, I’m not exactly proud of it. I’m not like little girls who do things for effect.”
She turned her back and marched to her ball, but before she was ready for the stroke she faced him again. “You’re just a naughty little boy throwing paper wads in school,” she said, sweetly, “and you think you’re a grown man being devilish.”
“Eh?” he said, a bit startled. On the face of it she had merely uttered a saucy, childish gibe, but Potter was struck by it. He tucked it away in his mind for future reference. There were elements of shrewdness, of insight, of truth in it.
“I have a puppy who chewed up my best slippers—because he hadn’t anything else to do,” she said.
“Do your friends, by any chance, hint that your tongue is sharp?” he asked.
She made no reply, but her driver whistled viciously through the air in a practice stroke.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “just to show you I’m forgiving I’ll let you play around with me.”
She looked at him an instant. “I’ll give you a stroke a hole,” she said.
“Eh?”