He returned in a few moments followed by a man, who spread the table with delicate fare.
Miss Randolph nibbled her oysters prettily. Thorpe was about to fill her glass with champagne, when she shook her head.
“I cannot,” she said. “It goes to my head—one drop.”
“Then don’t, by all means. I hope you like it, and are resisting a temptation.”
“I detest it, as it happens. If you want to see me in the high heroic rôle, which I infer you admire, you must devise a temptation of another sort.”
“I think your dear little sex should be protected from all temptation. I rather like the Oriental way of doing things.”
“Don’t you flatter yourself that a wall fifteen feet high, and covered with broken glass, would protect a woman from temptations, if she wanted them. A man, to keep a woman inside that wall, must embody all the temptations himself.”
Thorpe looked at her, and drew his brows together.
“That was a curious remark for a girl to make,” he said, coldly.