“Well,” said Maggie, staring at the window, “Frank is very good-looking, but I don't think that he electrifies one... he did once.”
“And when was that?” said Sally.
“You remember the first time he came to stay here? Willy brought him down from London. We went to bed early and left them playing billiards; I lay awake waiting to hear them come up the stairs, and as he passed my room Frank stopped and I thought he was coming in. I felt it all down my spine, but never afterwards. You see, I didn't know him much then.”
“And Jimmy?”
“I never liked Jimmy.”
“If you don't like him why trouble about him?” Sally replied in her usually defiant manner. “You always take good care to trouble about my men. You tried all you could to get Jimmy away from me, yet you pretend to father that you never flirted with him.”
“I didn't flirt with him; once a young man looks at you you think no one must speak to him but yourself. If young Meason asks me to dance with him, I cannot refuse; I am not going to make myself ridiculous though you were to look all the daggers in the world at me, but as for flirting with him, I never cared enough about him.”
“And what about meeting him in London?”
Maggie coloured a little, and repudiated the accusation.
“You told him you were going to London, and you asked him if he were going, and what he would be doing that day. I don't know what more you could say.”