She shrugged her shoulders, eyes fixed on the moths. "I had to make my own living. I chose stenography as the quickest road to self-sustenance."
She looked up, a flush on her cheeks.
"I suppose you took me for an inferior?" she said. "But do you suppose I'd flirt with you if I was?"
She pressed her face to the pane again, murmuring that exquisite poem of Andrew Lang:
"Spooning is innocuous and needn't have a sequel,
But recollect, if spoon you must, spoon only with your equal."
Standing there, watching the moths, we became rather silent—I don't know why.
The fire in the range had gone out; the candle-flame, flaring above a saucer of melted wax, sank lower and lower.
Suddenly, as though disturbed by something inside, the moths all left the window-pane, darting off in the darkness.
"That's curious," I said.
"What's curious?" she asked, opening her eyes languidly. "Good gracious! Was that a bat that beat on the window?"