“In two minutes I shall shake you. There is nothing either funny or clever in being exasperating.”
“I am sorry,” he replied, with imperturbable humour. “If you will tell me what you want to know, I will try to enlighten you.”
“Then ‘why’ and ‘when’ did this country bumpkin say she hated me!”
“The incident took place in a sanctum at Mourne Lodge, known as my den, upon the evening when Kathleen and Doreen ‘came out.’”
“And what was she doing in your den, pray, in the middle of a dance!”
Gwen spoke peremptorily. She had somehow, unconsciously, grown to consider Lawrence her property, although there had never been anything but good-fellowship between them. Ever since she was ten and he was twenty she had ordered him about, and Lawrence, while teasing her, had usually acquiesced because she amused him.
“To the best of my recollection she was playing with my foreign swords.”
“And how could that have anything to do with me?”
“She chanced to weary of the swords, and on a voyage of further discovery came across your photograph, in the place of honour, on my desk.”
A pleased gleam passed through her eyes.