"I sure would."
"If I displeased you?"
"You bet."
"Really?" She turned partly toward him, half in earnest. "Suppose—suppose—" but she stopped suddenly, with a light little laugh that lingered pleasantly in the vast, still room.
She said: "I begin to think that there are two Kellys—no, one Kelly and one Louis. Kelly is familiar to me; I seem to have known him all my life—the happy part of my life. Louis I have just seen for the first time—there at the easel, painting, peering from me to his canvas with Kelly's good-looking eyes all narrow with worry—"
"What on earth are you chattering about, Valerie?"
"You and Kelly…. I don't quite know which I like best—the dear, sweet, kind, clever, brilliant, impersonal, god-like Kelly, or this new Louis—so very abrupt in speaking to me—"
"Valerie, dear! Forgive me. I'm out of sorts somehow. It began—I don't know—waiting for you—wondering if you could be ill—all alone. Then that ass, Sam Ogilvy—oh, it's just oversmoking I guess, or—I don't know what."
She sat regarding him, head tipped unconsciously on one side in an attitude suggesting a mind concocting malice.
"Louis?"