Stella interrupted him.
"All questions that deal with human beings, Mr. Travers," she said, "are personal questions, and the heat does not affect them."
For one awful moment Mr. Travers thought that Miss Waring was laughing at him; there was that strange glint in her eyes that he had noticed before. She had extraordinarily pretty eyes, usually so gentle. It was most upsetting.
She disappeared with her correspondence before he could think of a suitable reply. Legally he had been perfectly justified, more than justified, because he was under no obligation to offer her ten pounds more.
This is what comes of generosity to women. If he hadn't offered her that ten pounds she wouldn't have laughed at him, if she really had laughed at him.
It was a most disquieting thought; it haunted him all day long, even more than the possibility of a European war. He couldn't help the European war if it did come off, but he wished very much that he had been able to prevent Miss Waring's enigmatic laughter.
CHAPTER VI
When anything happened, Julian's first instinct was to happen with it. He had never been in the rear of a situation in his life. The blow of the Austrian ultimatum reached him on a yacht in mid-channel. There was a cabinet minister on board, for whose sake the yacht slewed round to make her way swiftly back to port. Julian went directly to him.
"Look here," he said, "we've got to go in. You grasp that, don't you?"