Ransom, from the window: “Do? I’ll tell you what I did.”
Miss Reed: “That’s Ol—Mr. Ransom. And, oh, I can’t make out what he’s saying! He must have gone away to the other side of the room—and it’s at the most important point!”
Miss Spaulding, in an awful undertone: “Was that the hollow rumbling I heard? And have you been listening at the register to what they’ve been saying? O Ethel!”
Miss Reed: “I haven’t been listening, exactly.”
Miss Spaulding: “You have! You have been eavesdropping!”
Miss Reed: “Eavesdropping is listening through a key-hole, or around a corner. This is very different. Besides, it’s Oliver, and he’s been talking about me. Hark!” She clutches her friend’s hand, where they have crouched upon the floor together, and pulls her forward to the register. “Oh, dear, how hot it is! I wish they would cut off the heat down below.”
Grinnidge, smoking peacefully through the silence which his friend has absent-mindedly let follow upon his last words: “Well, you seem disposed to take your time about it.”
Ransom: “About what? Oh, yes! Well”—
Miss Reed: “’Sh! Listen.”
Miss Spaulding: “I won’t listen! It’s shameful: it’s wicked! I don’t see how you can do it, Ethel!” She remains, however, kneeling near the register, and she involuntarily inclines a little more toward it.