"I suppose you think you are amusing," says Miss Kavanagh, regarding him with a critical eye.
"My good child, I know that expression," says Mr. Browne, amiably. "I know it by heart. It means that you think I'm a fool. It's politer now-a-days to look things than to say them, but wait awhile and you'll see. Come; I'll bet you a shilling to a sovereign that he'll be delighted with my suggestion, and put it into his next edition without delay. No charge! Given away! The lot for a penny-three-farthings. In fact, I make it a present to him. Noble, eh? Give it to him for nothing!"
"About its price," says Miss Kavanagh thoughtfully.
"Think you so? You are dull to-night, Jocelyne. Flashes of wit pass you by without warming you. Yet I tell you this idea that has flowed from my brain is a priceless one. Never mind the door—he's not coming yet. Attend to me."
"Who's not coming?" demands she, the more angrily in that she is growing miserably aware of the brilliant color that is slowly but surely bedecking her cheeks.
"Never mind! It's a mere detail; attend to me and I entreat you," says Mr. Browne, who is now quite in his element, having made sure of the fact that she is expecting somebody. It doesn't matter in the least who to Mr. Browne, expectation is the thing wherein to catch the embarrassment of Miss Kavanagh, and forthwith he sets himself gaily to the teazing of her.
"Attend to what?" says she with a little frown.
"If you had studied your Bible, Jocelyne, with that care that I should have expected from you, you would have remembered that forty odd years the Israelites hankered after those very fleshpots of Egypt to which I have been alluding. Now I appeal to you, as a sensible girl, would anybody hanker after anything for forty odd years (very odd years as it happens), unless it was to their advantage to get it; unless, indeed, the object pursued was priceless!"
"You ask too much of this sensible girl," says Miss Kavanagh, with a carefully manufactured yawn. "Really, dear Dicky, you must forgive me if I say I haven't gone into it as yet, and that I don't suppose I shall ever see the necessity for going into it."
"But, my good child, you must see that those respectable people, the Israelites, wouldn't have pursued a mere shadow for forty years."