June stepped midway in the act of bestowing upon him a second helping of tapioca.
“She’s a what?” she demanded fiercely.
“A museum piece, Miss June.” His enthusiasm was restrained but none the less absurd. “She’s hallmarked. She walks in beauty.” A blush, faint yet becoming, slowly overspread William’s delicately tinted complexion.
June snorted. Had it been within the province of eyes to slay, this Gaby would have had no use for a second helping of tapioca.
“Glad to know that!” said June, homicidally. “As you are so set on beauty, you must have had an interesting morning.”
A disgracefully impersonal silence was William’s only answer. The deadliness of the observation seemed completely lost upon him. But was it?—that was the question for gods and Woman. Such a silence might mean anything.
“I suppose you’d say she had wonderful taste?”
“Miss Babraham?”
“No, Joan of Arc,” said Woman, venomously.
“Her taste is very good indeed—that is, in some things.”