Bildungsromans; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Scotland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"I want to see how jolly you'd look coming round the corner under the
trees."
"You are funny."
"I suppose you think I'm absurd. But really, you know, you do look like
a Dresden shepherdess with your heart-shaped face and slanting eyes."
"Thanks for those few nuts."
"No, really, do go on, won't you?"
"I certainly sha'n't. People would think we was mad."
"What do people matter?"
"Hark at him. Now he's crushed the world."
"One has to be fanciful on such an afternoon."
"You're right."
"I suppose I couldn't kiss you here?"
"Oh, of course. Wouldn't you like to sit down on the curb and put your
arm round my waist?"
"As a matter of fact, I should."
"Well, I shouldn't. See? Where's this unnatural tea-shop?"
"Just here."
"It looks like the Exhibition."
It was a dim coffee-shop hung with rugs and gongs. The smoke of many
cigarettes and joss-sticks had steeped the gloom with Arabian airs.
"It is in a way a caravanserai," said Maurice.
"A what?" said Jenny.
"A caravanserai--a Turkish pub, if you like it better."
"You and I _are_ seeing life to-day."
"I like my coffee freshly ground," Maurice explained.
"Well, I like tea."
"The tea's very good here. It's China."
"But I think China tea's terrible. More like burnt water than tea."
"I'm afraid you don't appreciate the East," he said.
"No, I don't if it means China tea."
"I wish I could take you away with me to Japan. We'd sit under a
magnolia and you should have a kiss for every petal that fell."
"That sounds rather nice."
"You know you yourself are a bit Japanesy."
"Don't say that. I hate to be told that."
"It's the slant in your eyes."
"I don't like my eyes," said Jenny emphatically.
"I do."
"One pleased, any old way."
"I love your eyes," said Maurice earnestly. "But I made a mistake when I
said you were Japanese. You're Slav--Russian, you know."
"I must be a procession of all nations, according to you."
"But you are frightfully subtle."
"Anything else? You're sure I'm not a bighead?"
"A what?" said Maurice.
"A pantomime bighead."
Maurice laughed.
"Men always talk about my eyes," Jenny went on. "They often call me the
girl with the saucy eyes, or the squiny eyes, _which_ I don't like. And
yet, for all my strange appearance, if I want a man to be struck on me,
he always is."
"Did you want me to be struck on you?"
"I suppose I must have."
"Is that why you made us see Irene home first--so that you could be
alone with me?"
"I suppose so. Any more questions? You're worse than my sister, and
she'd ask the tail off a cat."
"Hum!"
"Cheer up, Puzzled Willy."
"Have you ever--er--well, insisted on having the person you wanted
before?"
"No, I've not. Not like that. I can't make myself out sometimes. I don't
understand myself. I do a thing all of a sudden and the next minute I
couldn't tell anybody why I done it."
"I might have thought you were running after me," said Maurice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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