Page:Claire Ambler (1928).djvu/146

 "You remind me of a child I saw in Flanders one day. She was a little bright-eyed dancing sort of fairy creature and she'd got hold of some things it amused her to play with. They were new shells, charged with high explosives, and she was having a beautiful, light-hearted, good time with 'em."

"Good gracious! I don't believe poor Arturo is very likely to explode, Mr. Orbison."

"No; he's a gentle boy—patient and self-contained, I should say, no matter what he suffers. You don't understand my reference, naturally. There are things beneath the surface in Raona, Miss Ambler. It isn't as if you were playing around with American young men—or British, either. I wonder if you could attach some seriousness to the princess's anxiety for her son. Mr. Rennie does. He told me that Don Arturo was in a position here that possibly involved the element of personal peril and that your playing around, so to speak, might add to it."

"What!" Claire's eyes opened widely; she was indignant. "I think I never heard anything much more absurd in my life! Is that his mother's idea—and Mr. Rennie's—and yours? That in my playing around I play them off against each other?"