"Your husband would not like to hear you say that!" he remarked studying her curiously.
"He has to be away so much that I might have died of ennui if you hadn't taken pity on me!" she pouted.
Dalton was not ready with pretty speeches; it involved too much effort to make up insincerities, but he acknowledged that the drives had given him a great deal of pleasure. It was so difficult to rouse him to enthusiasm, and he was so complacently cynical, that Joyce took a delight in probing his silences and getting at his thoughts.
"Don't you ever really enjoy yourself?" she roguishly asked, her head on one side and arch mischief in her eyes.
"I've just said so, haven't I?"
"But you don't mean it. I wish I could understand you and all there is behind that grudging smile—what you think of people—me, for instance."
"I think if I were an artist I should like to paint a picture of you—you are so amazingly good to look at," he returned daringly.
Joyce coloured. She had asked for frankness and could not quarrel with him for having answered her bluntly. On the whole she was rather pleased, than otherwise, that he should admire her, for where was the use of being pretty if one's friends did not show that they appreciated the fact. So she beamed on him wholly unconscious of flirting and rallied him still further on his reserve.
"I don't want to be your model, but your friend. You treat me too much as a child and never give me any confidence. Today, after all these months, what do I know of you?"
"You know at least that I am very much at your service. Isn't that so?"