“My dear lass, this isn’t rough!” her companion exclaimed.
“You’re all of a tremble.” She put out her hand and laid it on his own, as if she had been a nurse feeling his pulse.
“Very likely. I’m a nervous little beast,” said Hyacinth.
“Any one would be nervous, to think of anything so awful. And when it’s yourself!” And the girl’s manner represented the dreadfulness of such a contingency. “You require sympathy,” she added, in a tone that made Hyacinth smile; the words sounded like a medical prescription.
“A tablespoonful every half-hour,” he rejoined, keeping her hand, which she was about to draw away.
“You would have been nicer, too,” Millicent went on.
“How do you mean, I would have been nicer?”
“Well, I like you now,” said Miss Henning. And this time she drew away her hand, as if, after such a speech, to recover her dignity.
“It’s a pity I have always been so terribly under the influence of women,” Hyacinth murmured, folding his arms.
He was surprised at the delicacy with which Millicent replied: “You must remember that they have a great deal to make up to you.”