“I don’t want you to,” said the girl with infinite patience—maternal patience, if Marcus could but have appreciated it. The mother looked to see if it were lost upon the man—and saw it was lost. Therefore she sat down beside Marcus, and Shan’t and the girl—friends by this time—were told to run and play.
The mother opened her sunshade and turned a deeply sympathetic face towards a very miserable and bewildered Marcus. This wasn’t the kind of woman with whom he was at ease. She made him shy, which was a thing he was not accustomed to be. He made other people shy as a rule.
“She’s a dear little child,” said the unwelcome woman.
“She is,” said Marcus. “Do you mind if I smoke?” He had found smoking as efficacious against some kinds of women as it is said to be against some kinds of insects—what kinds has not as yet been specified.
“I love it—my daughter is so fond of it.” Seeing Marcus’s look of indifference, perhaps of repugnance—she could not tell which—she added for safety, “The smell of it.”
“Umph,” said Marcus.
“How old is she?”
“Your daughter?” asked Marcus.
And the mother laughed. “How amusing you are! And yet you don’t feel it, do you? you don’t look it.”
“Umph!”