"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe I've been to sleep!" but he didn't apologize. He began instead to tell her some things that might interest her, about what Drummond, his best man, and he, had done in Manchuria, just as if nothing had happened; but naturally Estelle wouldn't be interested. She was first polite, then bored, then captious. Winn looked at her rather hard. "Are you trying to pay me back for falling asleep?" he asked with a queer little laugh. "Is that what you're up to?" Estelle stiffened.
"Certainly not," she said. "I simply wasn't very interested. I don't think I like Chinese stories, and Manchuria is just the same, of course."
Winn leaned over her, with a wicked light in his eyes, like a naughty school boy. "Own up!" he said, laying his rough hand very gently on her shoulder. "Own up, old lady!"
But has anybody ever owned up when they were being spiteful?
Estelle didn't. She looked at Winn's hand till he withdrew it, and then she remarked that she was feeling faint from want of food.
After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pâté de foie gras, half a melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable.
Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think that their little "breeze" had been entirely due to his own awkwardness. Still, he wished she had owned up.
CHAPTER V
It took Winn a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy, and knocked down an empty cocoanut.