"Yes?"
"I want to ask you one question. You needn't answer it, unless you like.... And then we'll leave it alone. I'm not as bad as you expected?"
Though he had warned himself at the beginning of dinner to be untiringly on his guard, Jack looked up with a start. She was absorbed in the music; her head was bowed, and she only raised it to glance with half-closed eyes at the dancers, occasionally concentrating on one couple and regulating her time by theirs.
"You've answered your own question. Rather inadequately," he added.
"Thank you ... I wish you danced! You're missing such a lot!"
"Am I? Lady Barbara, why on earth did you ask me that?"
Her head drooped lower over the keys.
"Because it hurt so!" she whispered tremulously. "Am I so vulgar?"
"Do you imagine you're quoting me?"
"Oh, Mr. Waring, be honest! You despised me before you met me. Do you now?"