"If it were you?—yes?"
But she did not continue.
It had been almost a spring day: that, no doubt, accounted for her headache. Maurice made a movement to rise. But Louise turned quickly on her side, and, in her own intense way, said: "Listen. You have the ticket, you say? Use it, and take me with you. Will you?"
He smiled as at the whim of a child. But she was in earnest.
"Will you?"
"No, of course not."
He tempered his answer with the same smile. But she was not pleased—he saw that. Her nostrils tightened, and then, dilated, as they had a way of doing when she was annoyed. For some time after, she did not speak.
But the very next day, when he was remonstrating with her over some small duty which she had no inclination to perform, she turned on him with an unreasonable irritation. "You only want me to do disagreeable things. Anything that is pleasant, you set yourself against."
It took him a minute to grasp that she was referring to what he had said the evening before.
"Yes, but then ... I didn't think you were in earnest."