He looked toward Frances and I could see he was showing off. But I thought she looked a bit disgusted. As for the frump, she suddenly opened the door, stepped down and then up again, but this time behind the steering wheel.
"If you don't come on, I'm going," she said quietly.
"Just a minute," he said, scowling back at her. He faced me.
"Look here, if I hit you once"—he leveled his finger—"well, they'll have to pick you up with a sponge, that's all!"
But, except for fixing my glass for a better study of Frances, I never moved. Didn't occur to me as necessary, you know, until she should drive off. Just stood leaning on my cane and with feet crossed, you know, in the way I had long ago found was the least exhausting, if one has to stand at all. But, by Jove, the fellow was right in my face now, almost! Devilish annoying!
"Did you hear me, you glass-eyed fool?" he barked in my ear. "You masher! By George, I'll mash you!"
And he looked at Frances again and laughed, but she was looking away off up at the big stone castle on the Pocantico Hills behind. And I just reveled in her glorious profile, splashed bright by the golden sunshine reflected from the Tappan Zee opposite. Incidentally, I was trying in my mind the three arm movements that must be made as one, and for which, to learn, I had paid the great master, Galliard of Paris, a thousand francs in gold.
The car began to edge away.
"All right—coming!" he yelled; and then he launched his blow. But so rapid—instantaneous, in fact—are the famous three movements of the great scientist, I don't remember that my eye even shifted its grip upon the monocle. Therefore, as I came back into the same position again as his shoulder hit the ground, I was in time to catch my darling's eye at last just as they curved. And, by Jove, she looked amused—and pleased.
As for the frump, she frankly and harshly laughed, and then moved up a speed, just as a south-bound express took the station.