“It is the effects of the poison,” she returned. “I must beg of you to come away. If you are poisoned I shall be held responsible. Surely you will come away, if only to relieve me from the discomfort of that position.”
Thereupon I got up ungraciously; this interference seemed to me to be very uncalled-for.
“If you wish it I will come away, but can you show me another place as good?”
“I really don’t know,” she answered. “You have such peculiar tastes. Suppose, instead of moving about, you go to the library and write.”
“Write what?”
“Oh, don’t ask me. Anything.”
“I never wrote a line in my life,” I rejoined irritably, turning off on a path away from her. But if by that I hoped or thought to get rid of her I was much mistaken. She followed me without speaking the whole length of a rhododendron walk, and then through a bower twined with honeysuckle and red roses. At the end of it I turned to her again.
“Well?” said I.
“I’ve hit on an excellent plan,” she answered, as if irritation were a thing unknown to her.
“Indeed,” I exclaimed. “Then like all excellent things it can keep.” And I walked on.