“I should prefer to talk about Bruges,” he said. “I’ve been there, and can tell you all you’d like to know. When I go back, I’ll send you some photographs.”
“Thanks—but I have a whole portfolio full. I want to hear about Paris. I’m afraid you’re a bit of a prig.”
“No man could be less of a prig. I hope you are above the silly idea that, because we English have a slightly higher standard than other nations, it follows that we are prigs. You were entirely delightful a few moments ago; but I don’t like to see a woman drink when it affects her as it does you.”
The colour flew from her cheeks to her hair, and her eyes flashed angrily. “You are a prig, and you are extremely impertinent,” she said.
Thorpe sprang to his feet, plunging his hands into his pockets.
“Oh—don’t—don’t—” he exclaimed. “I’m afraid I was rude. I assure you, I did not intend to criticise you. Please say you forgive me.”
She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “You look so really penitent,” she said gaily. “Sit down and fill my glass, and drink to our—friendship.”
He was about to remonstrate; but reflecting that it would be a bore to apologise twice in succession, and also that what she did was none of his affair, he filled her glass. She touched it to his, and threw herself back against the skins, sipping the wine slowly and chattering nonsense. He refilled her glass absently the fourth time; but when she pushed it across the table again, he said, with some decision:
“Be careful. This champagne is very heady. I feel it myself.”