Lanyard nodded to him with great good temper and--while Phinuit lowered
his feet and put away his penknife--considerately placed a chair for
Liane in the position in which she preferred to sit, with her face
turned a little from the light. Nor would his appreciation of the
formality which seemed demanded by Monk's solemn manner, permit him to
sit before the captain had taken his own chair behind the desk.
Then, however, he discovered the engaging spontaneity of a schoolboy at
a pantomime, and drawing up a chair sat on the edge of it and addressed
himself with unaffected eagerness to the most portentous eyebrows in
captivity.
"Now," he announced with a little bow, "for what, one imagines, Mr.
Phinuit would term the Elaborate Idea!"
XXIV
HISTORIC REPETITION
Phinuit grinned, then smothered a little yawn. Liane Delorme gave a
small, disdainful movement of shoulders, and posed herself becomingly,
resting an elbow on the arm of her chair and inclining her cheek upon
two fingers of a jewelled hand. Thus she sat somewhat turned from Monk
and Phinuit, but facing Lanyard, to whom her grave but friendly eyes
gave undivided heed, for all the world as if there were no others
present: she seemed to wait to hear him speak again rather than to care
in the least what Monk would find to say.
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