“You tell me that there is the other side of the question,” she went on, “and that somebody else whom you like better may come and sit here, ready to take you when the first person is tired. So they may, so they may. And if ever you prefer anybody else to me I will bite you.”
She closed her lips gently on a little pink shell ear that peeped out from the blanket.
“I will bite you,” she went on, “and I will not hurt you. How should I hurt you? You would have your avengers if I did. Many of them, many of them, and myself among the first. Others also, one other particularly. Oh, baby, I assure you that you are not in bad hands. That is a very good man who comes to see you sometimes, that man whom I think you recognise. He is clever, too, and once he painted a picture of a girl and a puppy dog, which was quite extraordinarily like.”
Jeannie paused a moment, and adjusted the bottle again.
“What an impertinence, was it not? And I was very angry. You should have seen us meet! He walked into the garden one day not long after, and I told him what I thought. I said he was a cad; I troubled him not to do that sort of thing again. I said it stamped a man, and he would have done better to take example by his blessed mother, and write tracts for the G. F. S., instead of spoiling good canvas and wasting his time in trying to paint. He had no idea of line, I told him, and less of colour. Did I really say all these things? I can not be quite sure: it is so long ago.”
There was a step on the stairs, and the moment after the door opened gently.
“May I come in?” said a voice.
Jeannie turned round quickly.
“Yes, come in, Mr. Collingwood,” she said. “I didn’t expect you till the later train. Baby and I are having a talk, and I can’t get in a word edgeways.”
“I caught the earlier train,” he said. “But I, too, didn’t expect to find you here. Isn’t it the policeman’s night?”