“Yes, it’s warmer here than it was in England,” said Francie, looking languidly at the rings on her left hand; “we were perished there after Paris.”
She felt that the familiar mention of such names must of necessity place her in a superior position, and she was so stimulated by their associations with her present grandeur that she raised her eyes, and looked at him. Their eyes met with as keen a sense of contact as if their hands had suddenly touched, and each, with a perceptible jerk, looked away.
“You say that Paris was hot, was it?” said Hawkins, with something of an effort. “I haven’t been there since I went with some people the year before last, and it was as hot then as they make it. I thought it rather a hole.”
“Oh, indeed?” said Francie, chillingly; “Mr. Lambert and I enjoyed it greatly. You’ve been here all the spring, I suppose?”
“Yes; I haven’t been out of this place, except for Punchestown, since I came back from leave;” then with a reckless feeling that he would break up this frozen sea of platitudes, “since that time that I met you on the pier at Kingstown.”
“Oh yes,” said Francie, as if trying to recall some unimportant incident; “you were there with the Dysarts, weren’t you?”
Hawkins became rather red. She was palpably overdoing it, but that did not diminish the fact that he was being snubbed, and though he might, in a general and guarded way, have admitted that he deserved it, he realised that he bitterly resented being snubbed by Francie.
“Yes,” he said, with an indifference as deliberately exaggerated as her own, “I travelled over with them. I remember how surprised we were to see you and Mr. Lambert there.”
She felt the intention on his part to say something disagreeable, and it stung her more than the words.
“Why were you surprised?” she asked coolly.