Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/227

 'What?'

'A certain woman's name.'

'Whose?'

'Can't you guess?'

'Not possibly.'

'Well, listen,' and gently he repeated Sheilah three times—more gently than he realized.

She turned and stared at him. There he sat against the tree, eyes closed, chin uplifted, like a magician, under some strange hypnotic spell. He became aware of the silence, and opened his eyes, meeting hers, brimming with suspicion.

'What's the matter?' he inquired in the innocent, injured tone of a child surprised. 'Don't you like my simile? I thought it such a pat one, and much more poetical than a buzz-saw.' He spoke flippantly now, forcing his eyes to sparkle with fun at her; and still further to set her fears at rest, he picked up a pinecone near by and flung it at her. It hit her grotesquely on the chin. 'Oh, I'm sorry. Forgive me. I'm a brute.'

Instantly she flung the cone back at him. He caught it laughing.

'Do you think,' she inquired a moment later, now entirely reassured. (After all he'd been only teasing. She might have known! He was always only teasing.) 'Do you think I should have taken you out of that no-trump bid last night?'