“You. I know you do something.”
“Who told you anything about me?”
“No one. I gathered it from the way you speak.”
“Oh, I see.” Lal was unmistakably relieved.
“I wish you would tell me how you set about it.”
“I’d rather not discuss the question.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Dolly. Twice, now, had he shut up like an oyster and pinched her fingers; and she was half angry, until she recognised that he meant no rudeness. To this conclusion was she brought by the study of his face. Lal, when he spoke of himself, had a trick of drooping his eyelids, so that, as the lashes were long, his eyes were hidden completely; he was foolish enough to be modest. The compression of his sensitive lips notified Dolly of another extenuating circumstance: namely, that he was uncomfortable to the point of frenzy. In escaping her inquiries he was ready to leap clear over the bars of politeness; surely, then, since he so valorously defended their privacy, his convictions must be very dear to him. As she was musing thus, the drooped lids were raised with disconcerting abruptness, and Lal’s beautiful dark-grey eyes looked down appealingly.
“I did not mean to be rude. I would rather be rude to any one than you,” he said.
Dolly’s breathing quickened; a warm spring rose in her heart. “I had no business to ask you; but I thought perhaps I might do something myself,” she said.
“It is only that I—” Here Lal stopped. “I don’t think—” he began again; and finally clothed his thought in a general law, altogether eliminating the painful personal pronoun I. “An amateur’s private opinion is never very interesting.”