'Well! Can you deny that these things are in your mind?'
'They are not in my mind at this moment, that's quite certain,' said Harvey bluntly.
'Then, what is?'
'Something it isn't easy to say, when you insist on quarrelling with me. Why do you use this tone? Do I strike you as a pedagogue, a preacher—something of that sort?'
His energy in part subdued her. She smiled uneasily.
'No. I don't see you in that light.'
'So much the better. I wanted to appear to you simply a man, and one who has—perhaps—the misfortune to see in you only a very beautiful and a very desirable woman.'
Alma sat motionless. Her smile had passed, vanishing in a swift gleam of pleasure which left her countenance bright, though grave. In the same moment there sounded again a rat-tat at the outer door. Through his whirling senses, Harvey was aware of the threatened interruption, and all but cursed aloud. That Alma had the same expectation appeared in her moving so as to assume a more ordinary attitude; but she uttered the word that had risen to her lips.
'The misfortune, you call it?'
Harvey followed her example in disposing his limbs more conventionally; also in the tuning of his voice to something between jest and earnest.