Part 58 (1/2)
”Like what?”
”Why d'you stare at me? Anything wrong?”
”I wasn't staring at you,” she a.s.serted. ”The sun gets in my eyes if I look the other way.”
”I'll draw the blind down,” he said.
He got up from the table and shut the afternoon sun out. The tea-tray, the photographs, the little dogs, they two, were plunged in a greenish twilight manufactured by the sun with the a.s.sistance of the Venetian blind.
”There,” Julian said, sitting down again, ”now we shall all look ghostly.”
”But if I do take a fancy to look at you, why shouldn't I, then?” Cuckoo asked.
”I don't mind,” he laughed. ”But you didn't seem pleased with me, I thought.”
”Rot!”
”Oh! you were pleased, then?”
”I don't say as I was, or wasn't.”
”You're rather like the Sphinx.”
”What's that?”
”Enigmatic.”
She didn't understand, and looked rather cross.
”I told you I wasn't looking at you,” she exclaimed pettishly.
”Then you told a lie,” Julian said, with supreme gravity. ”Think of that, Cuckoo.”
”And what would you ever tell me but lies if I was to ask you things?”
she rejoined quickly.
Julian began to see that there was something lurking in the background behind her show of temper. He wondered what on earth it was.
”Why should I tell you lies?” he said.
”Oh! to kid me. Men like that. You're just like the rest, I suppose.”
”I suppose so.”
She seemed vexed at his a.s.sent, and went on:
”Now, aren't you, though?”
”I say, yes.”