Page:The Clue of the Twisted Candle (1916).djvu/256

"You said it was 'weird' which was worse," she claimed.

"I may have said it was 'weird,'" he admitted, "but that's rather different to saying it was 'comic' There is dignity in weird things. For example, nightmares aren't comic but they're weird."

"Thank you," she said pointedly.

"Not that I mean your name is anything approaching a nightmare." He made this concession with a most magnificent sweep of hand as though he were a king conceding her the right to remain covered in his presence. "I think that Belinda Ann—"

"Belinda Mary," she corrected.

"Belinda Mary, I was going to say, or as a matter of fact," he floundered, "I was going to say Belinda and Mary."

"You were going to say nothing of the kind," she corrected him.

"Anyway, I think Belinda Mary is a very pretty name."

"You think nothing of the sort."