How still it was!
No sound save the little click of Lallie's needles as she changed them at the end of a row, and the soft sizzle of the wood fire. Why was she--gregarious, garrulous Lallie--so silent? If only she had insisted on talking he could have laid aside those tiresome proses with a sigh as to the impossibility of work with such a chatterbox in the room. But she was quiet as any mouse, and Tony wanted to talk himself.
"Can you see all right?" he asked at last.
"Perfectly, thank you," and she never turned her head.
Silence again, while Tony smoked and made no attempt to correct papers. Instead, he found himself admiring the straightness of Lallie's parting, and marvelling at the slenderness of her little neck that showed never a bone.
Presently he reflected that it was hardly hospitable to condemn a young and lively girl to complete silence during her first evening hi his house.
Hospitable! It was positively churlish.
Tony pushed the papers on the table a little farther away from him. It was his plain duty to talk to Lallie.
"What's that you're knitting?" he asked sociably.
"A tie for Mr. Cripps. Isn't it a pretty colour? Have you finished? How quick you've been! I thought you'd be hours and hours."