He flushed at her allusion to his ill-considered interview with her, but he could not for his life be half so indignant as he wished to be.
"Apparently an indifferent messenger. You evidently do not care whether
I go or I stay."
"Why should I?"
"Why should Mrs. Wilson?" he retorted, not very well knowing what he was saying.
"Oh, Mrs. Wilson is your hostess. Besides," Bee went on, a delightful look of mischief coming into her face, "she said that she hated to have her plans interfered with, and that you were so handsome that she liked to have you about."
Maurice flushed with a strangely mixed sensation of pleased vanity and irritation, and was angry with himself that he could not receive her jesting unmoved. He bowed stiffly.
"I am very sorry," he returned, "that Mrs. Wilson should be deprived of so beautiful an ornament for her place."
"Then you will go?" Bee demanded, looking at him with mirthful eyes, a glance which so moved him that he could not face it.
"I see no reason why I should remain."
"There certainly can be none if you see none. Well, I want to give you something of yours before you leave us."