“Not at all. I have nothing to do.”
“I would rather speak to you first—whatever it is you have to say—and go on with my work afterward. I dislike to draw with people looking on.”
“In that case I will ask you to give me your attention at once. Will you, perhaps take this seat?”
He indicated an old wooden arm-chair; but she declined it with a quick motion, and went over and took her old place on the model-throne, lifting Inkling to her lap. Harold seated himself on a bench directly facing her.
“I am sorry if I am annoying you,” he said; “but I cannot take the consequences of not speaking to you now.”
“Consequences?” she said. “What consequences?”
“Consequences to you and to me. I will ask you to be kind enough to look at me while I explain them.”
Her eyes were fastened upon Inkling, and she kept them so, while she began to twist his soft ears. There was a moment of intense stillness throughout the room. Then the man, in a voice of deep concentration, spoke her name.
“Sophie,” he said.
“Pray don’t call me by that name,” she answered quickly. “I have never liked it, and I wish now to forget it.”