He set down the light on the mantelshelf and somehow found himself holding her hand. Neither appeared to be aware of the fact.
"My dear Margaret, I was hoping you had accepted my fit of melancholy——"
"You stupid Morgan! I only wanted you to tell me how clever I am. I am so greedy for praise—because I haven't any of those melancholy fits, and my vanity must be gratified somehow. At least, when I do have the mopes I always know the reason, and it has never been anything connected with my genius."
"What! you don't mean to say that you ever——"
"Sometimes," she interrupted. "A good deal of late, only, unlike you, I never let anybody guess."
"I thought you were a perfectly happy girl in the first flood of enthusiasm for your work and with all those nice men to admire you."
Her fingers tightened perceptibly on his.
"If you continue to plague me about those nice men, Morgan, you shall not have a single dance next time, but you'll just see those nice men get them all."
"I am sure you don't look a bit as if you could devise such cruel torture."
"Would it be a very terrible punishment?"