“But one sees a determined effort to marry someone,” she said, “often productive of a very passable imitation of falling in love.”
Had she boxed his ears, Evelyn could not have been more astonished. If this was an example of shutting the eyes; drawing a long breath and being natural, he felt that there was after all something to be said for the artificialities in which we are most of us wont to clothe ourselves. There was a very Marah of bitterness in the girl’s tone; he felt, too, as if all the time she had concealed her hand, so to speak, behind her back, and suddenly thrown a squib at him, an explosive that cracked and jumped and jerked in a thoroughly disconcerting manner. And she read the blankness of his face aright, and hastened to correct the impression she had made.
“Did you ever get behind a door when you were a child,” she asked, “and jump out calling ‘Bo!’? That is what I did just then, and it was a complete success.”
He looked at her a moment with his head on one side, as if studying an effect.
“But it was you who jumped out?” he asked rather pertinently.
“Ah, I wouldn’t even say that,” said she. “I think it was only a turnip-ghost that I had stuck behind the door.”
Evelyn gave a sort of triumphant shout of laughter.
“Well, for the moment it took me in,” he said. “I really thought it was you.”
