“Isn’t there anyone else? Do you live all alone with your uncle?”
“Oh, no! There’s ... there’s—a—cousin.... But she’s out.... Won’t you sit down?”
When he had done so, she fetched him a book from a little table.
“Would you like to look at some views?” she asked.
“No,” said Nick, smiling. “I wouldn’t.”
“Would you like to play cards?”
“No! I’d rather talk to you!”
She sat down on the edge of the couch—that couch covered with green corduroy, with nine sofa cushions of the most frightful sort.
Now Nick unconsciously expected a girl to do the talking, and the pleasing and the entertaining. Gallant responses were his part. So he waited, but quite in vain, for Rosaleen had no tradition of entertaining, and no experience. Never before had she sat in that room with a young man.
“Have you any of your work here?” he asked, at last, in despair.