"I can't think how you can stare like that," she said, with abominable matter-of-factness. "It would make me blink."
"I can enjoy looking at the sun—Now are those infernal things finished? I have been waiting with the patience of Job."
"But I can't think what for?"
"To talk to you."
"Well, talk then! I must do some typing," and she got up and went to her machine, which was on another table by the window. She knew perfectly well that she was driving him mad; it gave her a savage pleasure, and seemed a sort of balance to her own emotions on Christmas night about Algy.
He came and leant against the mantelpiece and looked down at her and quoted Dryden:
"She knows her man, and when you rant and swear
Can draw you to her with a single hair."
and stretching out his hand, he touched for an instant the faint broad waves on her forehead.
And now he saw her eyes flash brilliantly enough!
"If you are going to be impertinent, Mr. Strobridge, the staircase into the garden is quite close, and the sooner you find your way to it, the better I shall be pleased."