"What did he do then?"
"Why do you say 'do'?"
"Oh, I mean 'say,' of course. Don't trifle; go on. What did he say then?"
"There are some things too dreadful to describe," she answered, and wrapping her Italian blanket majestically about her she retired to her own apartment, shooting one enigmatical glance at me as she closed the door.
That glance puzzled me for some time after she left the room. It was as expressive and interesting a beam as ever darted from a woman's eye. The combination of elements involved in it, if an abstract thing may be conceived as existing in component parts, was something like this:—
One half, mystery.
One eighth, triumph.
One eighth, amusement.
One sixteenth, pride.
One sixteenth, shame.
One sixteenth, desire to confess.
One sixteenth, determination to conceal.
And all these delicate, complex emotions played together in a circle of arching eyebrow, curving lip, and tremulous chin,—played together, mingling and melting into one another like fire and snow; bewildering, mystifying, enchanting the beholder!
If Ronald Macdonald did— I am a woman, but, for one, I can hardly blame him!
