"Very well," she said resolutely, "if you elect to use the first minute of your hour as frivolously as that, I must submit, I suppose."
And she began to count aloud, rapidly: "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, ni——"
Her face was averted; he could see the tip of one small ear all aflame. Presently she ventured a swift glance around at him and saw that he was laughing.
"Ten, eleven, twelve," she counted nervously, still watching him; "thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—" panic threatened her; she doubled both hands in the effort of self-control and timed her counting as though the rapid beating of the tempo could hasten her immunity—"sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, one, two, three——"
"Play fair!" he exclaimed.
"I am trying to. Can't I say it that way up to ten, and then say thirty?"
"Oh, certainly. I've still half a minute. You'd better hurry! I may begin at any moment."
"Four—five—six—seven—m-m-m—thirty!" she cried, and the swift numbers fled from her lips fairly stumbling over one another, tumbling the sequence of hurrying numerals into one breathless gasp of: "Forty!"
His arm slid away from her waist; he stepped backward, and stood, watching her, one finger crooked, supporting his chin, the ironical smile hovering ever on his lips.
"Fifty!" she counted excitedly, her hands beating time to the counting; "—fifty-one—two—three—four—m-m-m—sixty!"—and she whirled around to face him with an impulsively triumphant gesture which terminated in a swift curtsey, arms flung wide apart.