‘See, they are ready,’ Larrie said. He had folded the slips of paper up into two little square pieces. ‘Will you draw or shall I?’
‘What have you put on them?’ Dot asked.
‘L and D,’ he said.
‘You could have put baby on one and left the other blank,’ she said, ‘and then I could have drawn one and left the other.’ She gained half a minute by the statement.
‘It comes to the same,’ he said, and held them out to her on the Japanese pen tray.
But she looked at the little pieces as if they [p 125] ]had been dynamite; a faint colour stole up into her cheeks, her eyes dilated.
‘Draw,’ he said.
She put out her hand and drew it back again trembling like a leaf and empty.
‘Wait a minute,’ she said with a little gasp. She covered her eyes for a second, then, suspiciously, ‘how do I know you have not marked one so you may know it?’
‘If you draw it will make no difference,’ he answered patiently.