"Too late," Isabel returned complacently. "I called that a cushion carom, Corrie. And my car would not fall to pieces. Flavia, he is feeding candy to Firdousi."
Flavia looked over with the warm brightening of expression Allan Gerard had learned to watch for when she regarded her brother, and which never failed to stir in him the half-wistful envy of the first day when he had seen her so gazing at the driver of the pink racing car.
"If Corrie can teach a Persian kitten to eat candy, he probably can teach it to digest candy," she offered serene reply. "Besides, he loves Firdousi, as much as I do."
"I only gave him some fruit-paste to see his jaws work," the culprit defended. "He needs exercise. And so do I."
"Not that kind, yours work all the time. It is only an hour since breakfast and you have talked ever since," corrected his cousin.
"I haven't!"
"You have."
Corrie ran his fingers through his heavy fair hair, carefully set the purring kitten on the floor, and stood up.
"All right, if you say so," he submitted gracefully. "What you say, I stand for."
The argument was pure sport, of course. But with that last playful sentence, Corrie suddenly turned his dark-blue eyes upon Isabel with an expression not playful, as if himself struck by some deeper force in the words.