While Harold Wynne was laying it on her lovely shoulders, she kept her eyes fixed upon his. Hers were full of intelligence. When he had carefully fastened the gold clasp just beneath the hollow of her throat—it required very careful handling—she poised her head to the extent of perhaps a quarter of an inch to one side, and laughed; then she moved away from him, but turned her head so that her face was once more over her shoulder, like the face of the Greuze girl from whom she had learnt the trick.
He knew that she wanted him to ask her from whom she had heard the stories regarding Castle Innisfail and its guests.
He also knew that the reason she wanted him to ask her this question, was in order that she might have the delight of refusing to answer him, while keeping him in the expectancy of receiving an answer.
Such a delight would, of course, be a malicious one. But he knew that it would be a thoroughly womanly one, and he knew that Mrs. Mowbray was a thorough woman.
Therefore he laughed back at her and did not ask her anything—not even to take his arm out to her brougham.
Archie Brown did, and she took his arm, still looking over her shoulder at Harold.
It only needed that the lovely, wicked look should vanish in a sentence.
And it did.
The full lips parted, and the poise of the head was increased by perhaps the eighth part of an inch.
“‘A gray eye or so,’” she murmured.