She betrayed the sharpness of the wound only by a deepening of the damask flush. “I’m thinkin’ of you, too. Wouldn’t you rather have everything come right again—so that you could marry the other girl—and know that I’d done it for you free—and not that you’d just bought me off?”
“You mean, wouldn’t I rather that all the generosity should be on your side––”
“I don’t care anything about generosity. I wouldn’t be doin’ it for that. It’d be because––”
He flung out his arms. “Well—why?”
“Because I’d like to do something for you––”
“Do something for me by making me a cad.” He was beside himself. “That’s what it would come to. That’s what you’re playing for. I should be a cad. You dress yourself up again in this ridiculous rig––”
“It’s not a ridic’lous rig. It’s my own clothes––”
“Your own clothes now are—are what I saw you in when I came home last evening. You can’t go back to that thing. We can’t go back in any way.” He seemed to make a discovery. “It’s no use trying to be what we were in the Park, because we can’t be. 168 Whatever we do must be in the way of—of going on to something else.”
“Well, that’d be something else, if you’d just let me go, and do the desertion stunt you talked to me about––”
“I’ll not let you do it unless I pay you for it.”