He did not speak, and she began to wonder whether excitement was a good thing for him. “How is your head now?” she asked, with concealed interest.
When he did not answer her she proceeded, “Your cheek is less swollen, now. You look quite yourself. Those bandages were not so very unbecoming; they were clean and—”
“Which hand was it?” he asked, abruptly.
She extended one trembling and seemingly agitated set of fingers. He laughed shortly and unamiably, made a slight motion toward them, then drew back.
“What did you have in mind when you said this affair was not what you meant?”
There was an ominous glitter in his eye foreshadowing approaching civilities; and Nina, with treacherous meekness, resolved to satisfy his curiosity. But she would take her own time about it, and she asked first, “Did you tell that—that creature not to speak to me?”
“Yes,” he said, shortly.
“I met him and he passed me by. I thought you had been advising him. What would you do if you built a nice, nice house, and put me in it, and sailed away over the sea, and came home one day and found a beautiful young man with blue eyes and curly hair, and not a sign of a bald spot, with—with—”
She stopped in pretended bashfulness.
“With his arm around you,” he said, coolly, “making love to you.”