“Oh, you ought to be,” he said, as he drew near and eyed the curtains with the air of a connoisseur; “I’m sure you couldn’t have chosen anything prettier.”
Viola’s spirits rose to the level they had been at when he met her earlier in the afternoon. Her eyes brightened and her face took on its most animated expression.
“They’re another outward and visible sign of the rise in mining stock,” she continued. “I’m so glad you noticed them without my having to make you do so.”
“Do you want to know why I did?”
“Because they were pretty, of course.”
“Not at all. I was looking at you as you arranged them, and wondering why a pair of curtains should be so much more interesting than I was.”
“What made you think they were?”
“Because you were devoting yourself to them and coldly ignoring me.”
“That was because I was a little bit frightened of you. You were so cross just now, before we came in, that I didn’t know what to say to you.”