He wanted to find out whether she was seeing Rupert; he soon discovered she was not, and he determined not to tell her of the presence of that young man. They might make it up, and Nigel thought it would be far better for Rupert to come back to Madeline. He was sure she was his real taste. And he still wanted to please Bertha.
They dined in a small but particularly excellent restaurant. She seemed to enjoy herself immensely, and grew every moment more confidential. Nigel tried not to flirt. He had no intention of doing so, and, had they met in London, would not have dreamt of such a thing; but meeting an English girl placed as she was gave a tinge of adventure and romance to his taking her out.
She told him she had no flirtations and cared for no man in the world. He then led the conversation gradually to Rupert Denison. It did not take long for her to work herself up to give him a somewhat highly coloured version of their quarrel, which amused him. It ended with “and so I never saw him again.”
“I can’t see that you have any real grievance, I must say. He seems to have been very nice to you, taken you out a great deal, and gone to see you pretty often. Did he not make love to you?”
“Never, never, never,” she replied. “He was just like a brother, or, rather, a sort of schoolmaster.”
“Then I believe that’s what made you angry,” he replied.
“Indeed it isn’t. At any rate, if it was a little, I assure you I’m not in love with him.”
He laughed, teased her about it, and now he found that she wished to go home. Feeling he ought not to take advantage of her position here, he was exceedingly respectful, and drove her to her flat, not before she had consented to dine and go to the theatre with him the next day.
“That sort of girl is rather difficult to understand,” he thought, as he drove away from the studio. “Perhaps now she’s thinking me a fool as she thought Rupert.”