“About cranks and anarchists and socialists—eh? Well, I don’t wonder. The lower classes are getting damned impertinent in this country. I’m strongly tempted to go to England to live. There’s the only place on earth where a gentleman can count on being treated like one all the time.”
“Yes, it is comfortable,” said the girl. “Except the climate!”
“That is rotten—isn’t it?... I wish the fellow would drop us.” Peter halted, frowning at the distant figure. “I think I’ll call out to him.”
“Oh, don’t bother,” said Beatrice. “He’s doing no harm.”
“But I feel as if we were being spied on.”
“What of it?” cried she with a radiant smile. “We’re not going to do anything that anybody mightn’t see.”
“But I’ve got some things to say to you—came down especially to say ’em.”
“Are they things that have to be shouted?”
“No—but—he makes me uneasy—and there’s you. You’ve got a way of looking and talking—as if you weren’t taking anything seriously.”
She was smiling as he spoke. But if he had been a close observer he might have seen an expression of a quite different character veiled by the laughter of lips and eyes.