Collier glared at her, and Paul who, for some reason, had hardly taken his eyes off his red-headed vis-à-vis, gave a sudden laugh, although he had had no intention of doing so.
"I like your sister," Maud Twiss said pleasantly, turning to Oliver, and speaking in an undertone. "She's a dear little thing."
"Isn't she," he answered, "very like me, don't you think?"
And Maud, who knew him less well than the other members of the family, was a little disconcerted, and blushed. She looked very handsome when she blushed, and Crichell leant across the table to her, waving those white hands of his in the way that was so singularly distasteful to Wick. Once more the young man was reminded of things sprouting in dark places, and then his quick imagination improved on this crude vision, and he seemed to catch a glimpse of blind sea-worms writhing in some sunless cavern.
"When are you going to sit to me, Mrs. Twiss?" the painter asked. But Twiss, who sat the other side of Jenny, leant over and answered for his wife.
"Never, Mr. Crichell. She's no time for portraits."
Paul, who disliked his younger brother-in-law, sneered at this, and Maud saw him.
"I saw you yesterday, Paul," she said, without lowering her voice. "You didn't see me, did you?"
He turned to her with a little snarl. "Yesterday? No, I didn't."
"I thought not. I was lunching at the Piccadilly Grill with Elynor Twiss."