A sarcastic smile crossed her lips.
"What a creature of impulses you are, Carnac! When we were children the day you saved Denzil years ago you flung your arms around me and kissed me.

I didn't understand anything then, and what's more I don't think you did.

You were a wilful, hazardous boy, and went your way taking the flowers in the garden that didn't belong to you.

Yet after all these years, with an impulse behind which there is nothing--nothing at all, you repeat that incident." Suddenly passion seemed to possess her.

"How dare you trifle with things that mean so much! Have you learned nothing since I saw you last?
Can nothing teach you, Carnac?
Can you not learn how to play the big part?
If you weren't grown up, do you know what I would do?
I would slap the face of an insolent, thoughtless, hopeless boy." Then her temper seemed to pass.