She spoke rapidly, her voice pitched very low. She was trembling all over, and her hands were clenched under the table to hide it.
The laugh with which Nick received her words jarred intolerably upon her. She heard nothing in it but deliberate cruelty.
"Great Lucifer!" he said. "You have got me under the microscope with a vengeance. But you can't see through me, you know. I have a reverse side. Hadn't you better turn me over and look at that? There may be sorcery and witchcraft there as well."
There might be. She could well have imagined it. But these were lesser things in which she had no concern. She turned his thrust aside with disdain.
"I am not sufficiently interested," she said. "The little I know is enough."
"Well hit!" chuckled Nick. "I retire from the fray, discomfited. Olga mia, I wish you would find the cigars. You know where they are."
Olga sprang to do his bidding. Having handed the box to Grange she came to Nick and stood beside him while she cut and lighted a cigar for him.
He put his arm round her for a moment, and she stooped a flushed face and kissed the top of his head.
"Run along," said Nick. "Take Muriel into the garden. She hasn't seen it all."
Muriel rose. "We mustn't be late in starting back," she remarked to
Blake.