“I heard you!” she said, in a tone which conveyed that that was enough.
“But didn’t you hear it?” he cried, unfurling his lips oddly again.
“No!” she said.
He looked at her vindictively, and stood again with ducked head. She remained erect, her fur hat in her hand, her fine bobbed hair banded with the machine band and catching crumbs of snow, her odd, bright-eyed, deaf nymph’s face lifted with blank listening.
“There!” he cried, suddenly jerking up his gleaming face. “You mean to tell me you can’t——” He was looking at her almost diabolically. But something else was too strong for him. His face wreathed with a startling, peculiar smile, seeming to gleam, and suddenly the most extraordinary laugh came bursting out of him, like an animal laughing. It was a strange, neighing sound, amazing in her ears. She was startled, and switched her machine quieter.
A large form loomed up: a tall, cleanshaven young policeman.
“A radio?” he asked laconically.
“No, it’s my machine. I’m deaf!” said Miss James quickly and distinctly. She was not the daughter of a peer for nothing.
The man in the bowler hat lifted his face and glared at the fresh-faced young policeman with a peculiar white glare in his eyes.
“Look here!” he said distinctly. “Did you hear some one laughing?”