“Come now! I’m beginning to think I’m of no use to you!”
“Right now I’m as happy as a little lark!” he declared.
She had begun to suspect that he had known unhappiness. A love affair perhaps. Or it might have been the war that had taken something of the buoyancy of youth out of him. She was happy in the thought that she was able to help him. He was particularly responsive to a kind of humor she herself enjoyed, and they vied with each other in whimsical ridicule of the cubists in art and the symbolists in literature.
... The guests were redistributing themselves and she suggested that he single out Leila for a little attention.
“Don’t have prejudices! There’s nothing in that,” she said.
“I haven’t a prejudice against Miss Mills!”
“Not so formal! I’ll give you permission to call her Leila! She’ll like it!”
“But you haven’t told me I might call you——”
“Millicent let it be!”
“Well, little one, how’s your behavior!” demanded Leila when Bruce found her.