"Oh, no brains!" she cried impatiently. "Must I talk baby talk to you?"
"You might talk comprehensible English," he said sternly. "And you might also find a more suitable topic than criticism of your sister."
She was daring enough to try to meet the cold fire of his gaze, but not steadfast enough to endure it. "Now you're angry with me," she accused, her breath catching a little.
Truly Cary Scott was angry with her. But anger was secondary to a sudden, startling realisation. He felt as if a clear, blinding, chilling light had pierced to a cherished place of illusions, betraying its voidness. No brains! It was sickeningly true. All through these weeks of his yielding to Stancia's physical charm he had unconfessedly harboured the knowledge, met and denied its disappointments, its deadening negations in a score of phases, by refusing to think them out. Now this bratling of the devil had thrown the ray of her withering and brutal candour upon his false spiritualisation of a gross attachment. Stancia was gentle, she was sweet, she was provocative, she was adorably lovely to look upon; but—no brains! For a man of Cary Scott's fastidious type of mind, it was a disenchantment beyond all hope of restoration. Nulla redintegratio amoris; the ancient philosopher was right; there was no such thing as a return upon the road of love. And, now he knew that it never had been love. However potently the attraction of Stancia's beauty might draw him, he would always know it for what it was; not the true fire, but a baser flame. Enlightenment! And in time, thank God! But he was in a still rage with the little prophetess who had revealed the omen. Out of the long silence came her half whisper:
"I am a little rotter, aren't I! But I just couldn't help it!"
Inadequate though the plea was, he felt inexplicably appeased of his wrath. When he was still meditating what he should say to this amazing child, footsteps, heavy and not all of them steady, sounded on the veranda immediately outside the window at which they were seated. Voices, unmuffled by any considerations of caution, came clearly to them.
"Quelque chick, what!"
"I'll telephone Mars that she is! And coming every minute."
"Too easy, say I. You can hug her to a peak."
"Something to hug, too, that little Treechie. She's got a teasin' little way with her."