Elsie smiled composedly.
"If they were only worth that I would make you a present of them," she said. "If they were worth more they would not be for sale."
"Are they worth more?"
"I don't know, really. Anyhow, they are not on the market." She drank some tea with a prim air, uncomfortably conscious that she was blushing.
There was a short pause, and Cullyngham spoke again.
"I hope I'm not boring you," he said, with a smile which took for granted the impossibility of the idea.
"Oh, dear, no. I'm seldom bored at meals." Elsie took a bite out of a bun.
"Very well. Till you have finished tea I will keep quiet; after that I will endeavour to amuse you."
The meal continued solemnly. Once or twice Elsie directed a furtive glance at the man beside her, and detected him eyeing her in a manner which made her feel hot and cold by turns. It was not that he was rude or objectionable, but Elsie suddenly felt conscious that Pip's open stare of honest admiration was infinitely less embarrassing than this.
Cullyngham, as a matter of fact, was in a dangerous mood. His was not a pride that took a fall easily, and the fact that he had been compelled to submit to Pip's unconditional ultimatum was goading him to madness. No man is altogether bad, but we are all possessed of our own particular devils, and Cullyngham accommodated more than his fair share of them. He had never denied himself the gratification of any passion, however unworthy, and at that moment his one consuming desire was to retaliate upon the man who had humiliated him. He looked around the empty conservatory, and then again at the girl in the basket-chair beside him. He could punish Pip now in a most exquisite manner.