"Really?" she said.
"Really," said he, looking the other way.
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 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 dare say. If I asked your wife--"
"I haven't got a wife," said Rhadamanthus.
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