"You do more than that. You devour.
Bedad, I have to look in a mirror to convince meself that you haven't
swallowed me whole. That's another way of telling you, Barnes, that
she'll absorb you entirely."
It was a long, deep and comfortable couch of the davenport class, and
she sat in the middle of it instead of at the end, a circumstance that
he was soon to regard as premeditated. She had planned to bring him to
this place beside her and had cunningly prepared against the
possibility that he might put the full length of the couch between
them if she settled herself in a corner. As it was, their elbows
almost touched as he sat down beside her.
For a few minutes she chided him for his unseemly aversion. He was
beginning to think that he had been mistaken in her motive, and that
after all she was merely satisfying her vanity. Suddenly, and as she
smiled into his eyes, she said, lowering her voice slightly:
"Do not appear surprised at anything I may say to you. Smile as if we
were uttering the silliest nonsense. So much depends upon it, Mr.
Barnes."
CHAPTER X
THE PRISONER OF GEEEN FANCY, AND THE LAMENT OF PETER THE CHAUFFEUR
He envied Mr. Rushcroft. The barn-stormer would have risen to the
occasion without so much as the blinking of an eye.
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