“He won’t let me go.”
“He’ll be tired first,” Lettie answered.
Alice was released, but she did not move. She sat with wrinkled forehead trying his cigarette. She blew out little tiny whiffs of smoke, and thought about it; she sent a small puff down her nostrils, and rubbed her nose.
“It’s not as nice as it looks,” she said.
He laughed at her with masculine indulgence.
“Pretty boy,” she said, stroking his chin.
“Am I?” he murmured languidly.
“Cheek!” she cried, and she boxed his ears. Then “Oh, pore fing!” she said, and kissed him.
She turned round to wink at my mother and at Lettie. She found the latter sitting in the old position with Leslie, two in a chair. He was toying with her arm; holding it and stroking it.
“Isn’t it lovely?” he said, kissing the forearm, “so warm and yet so white. Io—it reminds one of Io.”