Page:Marsh--The seen and the unseen.djvu/202

178 "I perceive you have been having a jest with me. I wish you, monsieur, a good-day."

Before they could stop her she had gone. Willie Nash stared at the door which she had pulled to behind her. …

"Stark mad," he said.

Mr. Kennard looked from the door towards him—his face was still one vivid note of exclamation.

"There's a method in her madness. If you were to offer her ten thousand francs I believe she'd think as little of shooting me as if I were a spadger!"

Nash shrugged his shoulders; he took out his cigarette case.

"I told you that the French had their point of view and we had ours."

"Did you, indeed! William Nash, if you only had been someone else, what a clever man you might have been!" Mr. Kennard began pacing up and down, tousling his hair as he walked, first with one hand, then with the other. "The minx!—the chit!—with a voice and a face that you'd think she was an understudy for an angel, and yet to be burning with a desire to kill herself, and anybody else you like to mention—why? What for? My boy, for less than a monkey!"

Mr. Nash was lighting a cigarette.

"It is only," he observed, "after you have lived some time in France among the French that you begin to realise how much abroad you are." Mr. Kennard stood still to glare at him.

"Sententious jackdaw!" He recommenced his walking to and fro. "I say, William, how would you like to marry her?" There was the sound of