"You do think sometimes, then?" says Monica, innocently.
"I have been thinking of you ever since I first saw you this afternoon," returns he, promptly, if unwisely.
There is an almost imperceptible pause, and then—
"Don't trouble yourself to do that again," says [Monica] very sweetly, but with a telltale flash in her blue eyes; "I am sure it must fatigue you dreadfully. Remember what a warm day it is. Another thing: don't for the future, please, say [rude] things about Ireland, because I don't like that either."
The "either" is the cruellest cut of all: it distinctly forbids him even to think of her.
"I am afraid I have been unlucky enough to offend you," says young Mars, stiffly, awaking at last to a sense of the situation, and glancing down uneasily at the demure little figure marching beside him with her pretty head erect. "I didn't mean it, I assure you. What I said was said in fun."
"Are you always like that when you are funny?" asks she, looking straight before her. "Then I think, if I were you, I wouldn't do it."
Then she is a little ashamed of her severity, and, changing her tone, makes herself so charming to him that he quite recovers his spirits before they come up with all the others on the lawn.
Yet perhaps her smiles have wrought him more harm than her frowns.
Madam O'Connor, going up to Miss Priscilla, engages her in some discussion, so that presently Monica finds Brian beside her again.