Now that he had come near, he was in no violent hurry to go on, for Paddy, perched on her hen-house roof, had a roguish, dare-devil look that was distinctly alluring.
“Oh! they come round again,” airily. “It would often be more fun if they didn’t. That’s why I like quarrelling with you. Your thunder-clouds last longer.”
“Then in future I shall suppress them altogether.”
“Not you. You wouldn’t know yourself amiable too long.”
“Am I so very bad-tempered?”
Paddy glanced up from her work.
“You’re the most detestable person I know, as a rule,” she informed him.
Lawrence could not help laughing, though she was evidently quite serious.
“I suppose the few intervals when I bask in the sunlight of your favour, are when I buy pigs to oblige you, and that kind of thing! I shouldn’t have taken you for a time-server, Paddy—only liking people for what you can get out of them.”
“Daddy was ill over the pigs,” she remarked, ignoring his thrust. “I told him while we were at tea, and he choked, and got dreadfully ill, because every time he was just calming down, he remembered about Dan’el on the floor, or about you having to buy my fifteen. I daren’t even mention such a thing as a pig in his hearing now. He isn’t strong enough for it. You see he hadn’t quite got over my charging into you when I was after that rat, and then making you carry the little beast of a ferret and join in,” and her eyes shone bewitchingly.