"Oh, if you asked him to please me——" she was beginning.
"Well," he explained, "what else could I do when he more than half suggested it? I couldn't be rude to him. I—he—we are pretty good friends."
But he only puzzled her the more. "You are pretty good friends?" asked Judith, again repeating his words.
This conduct on her part made the Colonel spring to the door, where for an instant he stood and beat his temples. "A woman's a devil!" he exclaimed after that interval, and stamped upstairs.
When a man's behaviour takes this turn, or his philosophy leads him to this conclusion, it is safe for the woman to assume that he has something on his conscience. Judith stood startled.
On what terms was Ellis with her father that he could force an invitation to dinner? And his object?
She watched Ellis during that first meal at her table. Judith had never before seen him in evening dress, nor as yet considered him so personally. His manners were good, his behaviour quiet; no one could have said that he was not a fair representation of a gentleman. That he was more he did not claim.
"This is the first time," he said, as he went in with her to the dining-room, "that I have dined in these togs in any house besides my own, public dinners excepted, of course. It feels stranger than I expected."
"Why should it feel strange?" she asked.
"Because I was not born or bred to it, I suppose."