“What an extraordinary way you have of ignoring what a person says to you. Are you absent-minded, or deaf, or merely impolite?”
“Merely an Englishman.”
Miss Belmont’s color deepened. Clive’s eyes invoked a ridiculous picture of a stately young châtelaine kicking and struggling in an Englishman’s arms.
“Why do the people of your country take pride in being rude?”
“They don’t. They don’t bother about trifles like the men of several other nations, that is all. I’ll open the door for you when you leave the room, and even take off my hat in the lift and catch a cold in my head, but don’t expect me to find a reply to all the nonsense a woman chooses to talk, if a more interesting subject occurs to me.”
“Are you very haughty and supercilious, or are you very shy?”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean that you were flattered to death by what I said, and changed the subject, as a girl would blush or stammer.”
“I suspect you are right.” He rose to let her pass. His eyes laughed down into hers, and she felt the sudden content of a child when it is noticed by a person of superior years and stature.
“That man has the most charming eyes I ever saw,” she said, as the dining-room door closed behind the women. “I don’t believe they ever could be sober.”