“For shame!” she cried, indignantly, while her eyes dimmed with mortification at her self-betrayal. But she boldly grappled with the situation. “Did you think I was thinking you thought me stylish? I know I am so; I had no need to think that. I was thinking that if ever you left the law and followed the true bent of your genius, New York ladies needn’t go to Worth for their dresses.”
“Isn’t that an unnecessarily elaborate bit of insult, considering that I hadn’t said a word to provoke it?”
“You smiled.”
“Why, you’ve been laughing all the time.”
“But I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Whom were you laughing at?”
“I was laughing at myself.”
“Well, I merely smiled at you.”
But Mrs. Farrell was plainly hurt past jesting for the present. She wound furiously at the worsted, and they both kept silence.
At last Gilbert asked, “What is all this yarn for?”