"Very well. We dine at eight. But if you hadn't been gadding after that young woman with the false address and the false face, you would have had your correspondence done."
"I don't care what it is. I'll get that clerk if you're not careful. Wasting your time over a woman anybody could have seen through in a blink! Miss Webb," he said, turning to Morton, "is an anomaly. You can't deceive her about men, but she's a tool in the hands of her own sex."
"I'm really the best judge of character of us all, male and female," she said, lifting her chin. "Don't you think so, Jack?" She felt power strong in her. She was the centre of a little circle which she controlled. The eyes of the three men were on her, and she knew she was admired according to the nature of each one.
Neville answered with his cheerful friendliness: "Of course you are!" Simon Smith chuckled indulgently. At Morton she did not look. She could feel the colour in her cheeks, and the sparkle in her eyes; she held her lips in their easy smile, and the weariness of her heart and mind had leapt from her.
She made Neville laugh three times while he did addition sums and she classified cases.
"It's a long time since I've been so funny," she said in great contentment.
"Oh!" She made a rueful face. "Don't you like me to be gay?"
"I always like you. Does that satisfy you? Let's attend to business."
At dinner Theresa talked very little. She had an instinctive wisdom in the making of her half-conscious effects, a sense of fitness that rarely failed her, and having let these men feel the tug of her personality, she let go her grip, and became responsive to theirs. She dropped a word here and there, laughed when she was amused, and presented no more than an intelligent expression to jokes that bored her, and throughout the meal she watched every movement Morton made, and was sensitive to each tone of his voice. It was a full, low voice, like that of many another man, and he treated his syllables with respect. This, like his appearance, pleased her; and when he turned his dark eyes full on her, she felt a little tremor run from her feet to her throat. In his looks she read lofty and earnest aspirations and a fastidiousness of mind which made her own view of things seem coarse. She was not humble, but she put a higher value on her own opinions when he turned and asked for them with his deferential air.