‘You’ve never in your life pronounced my name. I don’t believe you know it!’
She whispered.
‘Say it louder.’
‘It sounds too familiar,’ she objected, backing against the wall with impudently laughing eyes. ‘You’re so—so sort of old—like Uncle Howard.’
‘Oh, I know you’re young, but you needn’t put on such airs about it. You don’t own all the youth in the world.’
‘Thirty-five!’ she murmured, with a wondering shake of her head.
‘Ah—thirty-five. A very nice age. Just the right age, in fact, to make you mind me. Oh, you needn’t laugh; I’m going to do it fast enough. And right here we’ll begin.’ He folded his arms with a very fierce frown, but with a smile on his lips, quizzical, humorous, comprehending, kindly—the finished result of so many smiles that had gone before. ‘The business in hand, my dear young woman, is to find out whether or not you happen to know the name of the man you’ve promised to marry. Come, let me hear it; say it out loud.’
Marcia looked back tantalizingly a moment, and then, after an inquiring glance about the room as if she were searching to recall it, she dropped her lids and pronounced it with her eyes on the floor.
‘Laurence.’
He unfolded his arms.