"I can't find out the French for certain phrases it's necessary to use in the correspondence we have on hand just now. There are no equivalents for the idioms that I can discover as yet, and it's most important that I get them right. I 've practically had to make a phrase-book for myself so far, because the dictionaries and hand-books don't give the terms I want. I got hold of some old correspondence last week that helped me immensely, but to-day I was completely baffled. I suppose it has got on my nerves, and made me fractious."
Yet she did not look particularly nerve-worn, lying there in the low chair, in her thin white frock, her round arms resting upon the arms of the chair, her head thrown back, as she regarded her visitor from under low-sweeping lashes. Neither did she look in the least like the young woman of business she had become.
Brant was always trying to convince himself that her work was spoiling her--it would be a comforting realisation if he could think it. But as often as he had succeeded in making himself half believe that some other girl, whose ways of living were such as he approved, was nearly as attractive as Shirley Townsend, just so often did the sight of Shirley in some unbusinesslike surroundings upset his convictions. To-night she looked particularly feminine and alluring, in spite of her avowed fractiousness and her explanation of the cause.
"All baffling things wear on one," he answered, with an air of being sympathetic. "I know how it is, from experience. I 'd like a dictionary or a phrase-book myself--one that would tell me what to say to you when you want to be 'soothed.' Shall I go in and get a book of verse and read aloud to you?"
"Please don't."
"Fiction, then?
"Worse and worse."
"History? Philosophy? Science? Travel?--Or humour?"
"None of them. I don't like to be read to--as a duty."
"Duty! I'd be delighted."