“Why not?”
“Because I’m not going to play with you any more.”
“Why, Iris?”
“Oh,” she returned, with a little shrug of her shoulders, which frightened away both pigeons, “you didn’t like the way I played your last accompaniment, and so I’ve stopped for good.”
Lynn thought it only a repetition of what she had said when he criticised her, and passed it over in silence.
“I’ve already done an hour,” he said, “and I’ll have time for another before lunch. I can get in the other two before dark, and then I’m going for a walk. You’ll come with me, won’t you?”
“You haven’t asked me properly,” she objected.
Irving bowed and, in set, gallant phrases, asked Miss Temple for “the pleasure of her company.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered, “but I’m obliged to refuse. I’m going to make some little cakes for tea—the kind you like.”
“Bother the cakes!”