“Please don’t say unkind things to me. I’m likely to cry.”
“Don’t do that. Tears wouldn’t add anything to the effect of that gown; it’s one of the most perfect things I have ever seen you wear.”
“It isn’t bad, is it?” she rose with sudden animation and took a turn across the room, looking over her shoulder at her shadow in a long mirror.
“It’s charming. There’s no denying that there’s something very nice about you, Addie. You know how to wear your clothes; this matronly air you’ve been cultivating—the much-married look, isn’t wholly to my taste, but you’ll do. What’s that you’ve been reading?”
He stooped and picked up what appeared to be a magazine in a linen cover, stamped with gold letters. She caught at it, but he held it away and opened upon several hundred sheets of typewritten manuscript neatly bound into the case.
He flung it aside, laughing aloud.
“The Colonel’s speeches! Lord, Addie, do you think you have to do it?”
She had coloured, but manifested no resentment at his tone.
“He asked me if I didn’t want to read some of his things, and what was the answer?”
“Yes; what was it? It’s taking a mean advantage though! It was fitting that you should come in here to read those orations; they’re like the furniture—lines of austerest grace, with a little gilt stuck on here and there. You must have had a roaring time of it.”