His wits worked quickly. He remembered a recent sitting in the Folk-lore section of the Anthropological Congress.
“I suppose, my dear, a story current among the aborigines of Papua wouldn’t interest you?”
Her eyes dried magically. She snuggled up against him.
“Tell me.”
So Quixtus began a story about serpents and tigers and shiny copper-coloured children, and knowing the facts of the folk tale, gradually grew interested and unconsciously discovered a new talent for picturesque narration. One story led to another. He forgot himself and his wrongs, and pathetically strove to interest his audience and explain to her childish mind the significance of tribal mysteries which were woven into the texture of the tales. The explanation left her comparatively cold; but so long as there were tigers whose blood-curdling ferocity she adored, she found the story entrancing.
“There!” said he, laughing, when he had come to an end. “What do you think of that?”
“It’s booful,” she cried, and clambering on to both knees on his lap, she put both hands on his shoulders and held up her mouth for a kiss.
In this touching attitude Clementina and Poynter discovered them. The new-comers exchanged a whimsical glance of intelligence.
“Wise woman,” Poynter murmured.
“Obvious to any fool,” she retorted—and advanced further into the vestibule. “Feeling decidedly better?”