He took refuge in silence.
“Surely you’re not jealous of Hanky?” said she, with audacious mischief.
He ignored this.
“Don’t look so sour. I was merely joking. Are you cross because I made you help me tell—things that weren’t quite so?”
“I don’t like that sort of business,” said he, unconvincingly industrious with his brush.
“Neither do I,” said she. “But what was I to do? You know, you forced me into engaging myself to him.”
He stopped work, stared at her. The light—or something—that morning was most becoming to her, the smallish, slim, yellow-haired sprite—most disturbingly becoming.
She went on in the same sweet, even way: “And if it hadn’t been for my coming here to act as your model I’d not have got into trouble. And, having got in, what was there to do but get out with as little damage to poor Peter’s feelings as possible?” Then she looked at him with innocent eyes, as if she had uttered the indisputable.
Roger surveyed her with admiration. “You are—the limit!” he exclaimed. “The limit!”
“But isn’t what I said true?” urged she. “What else could I have done?”