“I called on Miss Champion some days ago. My work requires special ability. Shall I explain?”
“Please.”
He smiled like an Oriental, and, curling himself on the lounge, brought a black metal cigarette case out of the pocket of his dressing-gown.
“Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Not in the least.”
“Perhaps you will join me?”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
She was surprised when he laughed a rather foolish laugh.
“That’s quite a phrase, ‘The Women who Don’t!’ I keep a toyshop for phrases.”
He puffed his cigarette and began to explain the work to her in a soft and sacramental voice that somehow made her want to laugh. He talked as though he were reading blank-verse or some prose poem that was full of mysterious precocity. But she forgot his sing-song voice in becoming conscious of his eyes. They were moonish and rather muddy, and seemed to be apprizing her, looking her up and down and in and out with peculiar interest. She did not like Hugh Massinger’s eyes. They made her feel that she was being touched.