Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/29

Rh He put both hands on her shoulders, with a little roughness, and bent toward her, smiling quizzically, tenderly. "My new dress! I'm sure you're all paint," cried Teresa, and writhed away from him.

Basil looked at her, puzzled and apprehensive, and she looked at the picture, maintaining her offended air. Basil put his hands into the pockets of his brown corduroy coat, took out his cigarette-case, put it back again, and then stood quietly gazing at her, his lips compressed slightly, his eyes keen, searching, somewhat troubled. Teresa's moods, though he did not take them very seriously, always troubled the surface of things for him. He was used to coaxing her into good humour, and it was a labour that he never shrank from, for until it was accomplished nothing else seemed very important.

"Well, how do you like it?" he enquired at last of Teresa's chill profile.

"It is a little theatrical," she said.

"Well, so is she. That is, she would seem so to you, I daresay. She's very emotional."

"Really? She looks as though she had committed a mortal but pleasant sin, and was about to go to confession, which she would enjoy even more."

"That's clever of you," said Basil with a quick admiring smile. "She has the capacity for sin, and for confession, too. She's of the religious