“Is he?”
“Don't you sneer at me, Victor Gregg. I won't have it!”
“You won't, eh?”
He felt that he was pushing her to the danger point, but she was perfectly, satisfyingly beautiful in her anger; he taunted her with the pleasure of an artist painting a picture.
“I won't!” she repeated. Something else came to her lips, but she repressed it, and he could see the pressure from within telling.
“Don't get in a huff over nothing,” he urged, in real alarm. “Only, it made me kind of mad to see Blondy standing there with that calf-look.”
“What calf-look? He's a lot better to look at than you'll ever be.”
A smear of red danced before the vision of Gregg.
“I don't set up for no beauty prize. Tie a pink ribbon in Blondy's hair and take him to a baby show if you want. He's about young enough to enter.”
If she could have found a ready retort her anger might have passed away in words, but no words came, and she turned pale. It was here that Gregg made his crucial mistake, for he thought the pallor came from fear, fear which his sham jealousy had roused in her, perhaps. He should have maintained a discreet silence, but instead, he poured in the gall of complacency upon a raw wound.