A sudden change came over Dolly's face. Her dimples vanished: her eyes grew pathetic and began to shine rather than to sparkle: her lip quivered just a little.
'You're very unkind,' she said in an extremely low tone. 'I had no idea you would be so unkind.'
Rhadamanthus seemed very uncomfortable.
'Don't do that,' he said quite sharply, fidgeting with the blotting-paper.
Dolly began to move slowly round the table. Rhadamanthus sat still. When she was standing close by him, she put her hand lightly on his arm and said,—
'Please do, Mr. Rhadamanthus.'
'It's as much as my place is worth,' he grumbled.
Dolly's eyes shone still, but the faintest little smile began to play about her mouth.
'Some day,' she said (with total inappropriateness, now I come to think of it, though it did not strike me so at the time), 'you'll be glad to remember having done a kind thing. When you're old—because you are not really old now, you know—you will say, "I'm glad I didn't send poor Dolly Mickleham away crying."'
Rhadamanthus uttered an inarticulate sound—half impatience, half, I fancy, something else.
'We are none of us perfect, I daresay. If I asked your wife'
'I haven't got a wife,' said Rhadamanthus.
'That's why you're so hard-hearted,' said Dolly.
