Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/217

 "Didn't I look at you?"

"You know perfectly you didn't. Mrs. Server did—with her unutterable intensity; making me feel afresh, by the way, that I've never seen a woman compromise herself so little by proceedings so compromising. But though you saw her intensity, it never diverted you for an instant from your own."

He lighted before he answered this a fresh cigarette. "A man engaged in talk with a charming woman scarcely selects that occasion for winking at somebody else."

"You mean he contents himself with winking at her? My dear fellow, that wasn't enough for you yesterday, and it wouldn't have been enough for you this morning, among the impressions that led to our last talk. It was just the fact that you did wink, that you had winked, at me that wound me up."

"And what about the fact that you had winked at me? Your winks—come"—Obert laughed—"are portentous!"

"Oh, if we recriminate," I cheerfully said after a moment, "we agree."

"I'm not so sure," he returned, "that we agree."

"Ah, then, if we differ it's still more interesting. Because, you know, we didn't differ either yesterday or this morning."

Without hurry or flurry, but with a decent 211