CHAPTER XXIV
A JOURNEY TO THE MOON
There was a silence so politely indifferent on her part that he felt it to be the signal for his dismissal. And he took his leave with a formality so attractive, and a good humour so informal, that before she meant to she had spoken again—a phrase politely meaningless in itself, yet—if he chose to take it so—acting as a stay of execution.
"I was wondering," he said, amiably, "how I was going to climb back over the wall."
A sudden caprice tinged with malice dawned in the most guileless of smiles as she raised her eyes to his:
"You forgot your ladder this time, didn't you?"
Would he ever stop getting redder? His ears were afire, and felt enormous.
"I am afraid you misunderstood me," she said, and her smile became pitilessly sweet. "I am quite sure a distinguished foreign angler could scarcely condescend to notice trespass signs in a half-ruined old park——"
His crimson distress softened her, perhaps, for she hesitated, then added impulsively: "I did not mean it, monsieur; I have gone too far——"