William went up to the platform and stood by her desk.
“You see, if someone borrows a hundred pounds from someone else——”
She wrote down the figures on a piece of paper, bending low over her desk. The sun poured in through the window, showing the little golden curls in the nape of her neck. She lifted to William eyes that were stern and frowning, but blue as blue above flushed cheeks.
“Don’t you see, William?” she said.
There was a faint perfume about her, and William the devil-may-care pirate and robber-chief, the stern despiser of all things effeminate, felt the first dart of the malicious blind god. He blushed and simpered.
“Yes, I see all about it now,” he assured her. “You’ve explained it all plain now. I cudn’t unnerstand it before. It’s a bit soft—in’t it—anyway, to go lending hundred pounds about just ’cause someone says they’ll give you five pounds next year. Some folks is mugs. But I do unnerstand now. I cudn’t unnerstand it before.”
WILLIAM FELT THE FIRST DART OF THE LITTLE BLIND GOD. HE BLUSHED AND SIMPERED.
“You’d have found it simpler if you hadn’t played with dead lizards all the time,” she said wearily, closing her books.
William gasped.