And she laughed at him.
“And also answer me this,” she whispered. “When George was beastly to you and about me, and you were beastly to him back, weren’t you awfully glad that you hadn’t made love to me down here? Now weren’t you?... Oh, Ivor, what fun it must be to be a gentleman whose lawlessness is all according to rule, precept, and precedence!”
And she laughed at him.
“You are making a butt of me, Virginia,” he complained edgily.
“Indeed I’m not, dear!” She was contrite. “It was George who tried to do that, and whether he thinks it did or didn’t come off we won’t now have time to find out....”
“You see, Ivor,” she explained, “George made a small mistake. He has always laughed at my men—and so have I, for the matter of that!—and he thought he would have a go at laughing at you. He’s generally found it very effective. But when he found it didn’t come off with you he got angry and gave himself away.... It’s really entirely your fault, Ivor, for not being a laughing matter. You are a damn bad-tempered man, that’s what’s the matter with you, dear. Whereas all men should on certain occasions be laughing matters, or else other men will hate them.”
“So he hates me then, does he?” Ivor rather naïvely asked. “Is that, do you think, because of you or because he just happens to hate me, anyway?”
“Maybe he thinks you’re dangerous,” Virginia told him seriously. “Or maybe it’s because he’s not sure of the kind of man you are. George hates not being sure of people. He also hates not being sure of the income my trustees allow him as my relation-by-marriage—and a charming income it is, too, I do think! Anyway it won the First Prize at the Islington Income Show....”
You could never tell with Virginia in this mood: one moment she was quite serious, and the next she would say silly things like that.
“And has he any idea,” Ivor began sharply, but he never finished that question for she did the most surprising thing in the world: she drew a cross on his forehead with her finger: and she was not smiling.