“I’m so glad to see you,” she said, giving me both hands. “You know, I was just thinking of you.”
This clearly called for a gallant reply, so I answered, “Ah! that must be telepathy, for you know I’m always thinking of you.”
Yet I could have bitten my tongue as soon as I heard the last phrase slip from my mouth. There was a sudden catch in her breath; a soft light beaconed in her eyes. Confound the thing! why do the women we don’t want to always take us seriously, and those we are serious with always persist in regarding us as a joke? I hastened to change the subject.
“Ah, how are the kiddies?”
The kiddies were Ronnie and Lonnie, two twin boys, very sticky and strenuous, whom in my heart I detested.
“The darlings! They’re always so well. Heaven knows what I should do without them.”
“And he?”
“Oh, he! I haven’t seen him for three days, not since the remittance arrived, and then you can guess the state he was in.”
“My poor friend! I’m so sorry.” (How I hated my voice for vibrating as I said this, but for the life of me I could not help it. At such a moment tricks I had learnt in my short stage career came to me almost unconsciously.)
“Oh, don’t pity me,” she said; “you know a woman hates any one who pities her.”