“I think it’s horrible,” she said.
Laurie delicately adjusted a little tobacco protruding from his cigarette.
“Isn’t that a little unreasonable?” he asked. “You’ve hardly looked at it yet.”
Maggie knew this mood of his only too well. He reserved it for occasions when he was determined to fight. Argument was a useless weapon against it.
“My dear boy,” she said with an effort, “I’m sorry. I daresay it is unreasonable. But that kind of thing does seem to me so disgusting. That’s all. … I didn’t come to talk about that. … Tell me—”
“Didn’t you?” said Laurie.
Maggie was silent.
“Didn’t you?”
“Well—yes I did. But I don’t want to any more.”
Laurie smiled so that it might be seen.
“Well, what else did you want to say?”
(He glanced purposely at the book. Maggie ignored his glance.)
“I just came to see how you were getting on.”
“How do you mean? With the book?”
“No; in every way.”
He looked up at her swiftly and suddenly, and she saw that his agony of sorrow was acute beneath all his attempts at superiority, his courteous