“SHALL,” repeated Gertrude. “Did you ever study the doctrine of necessity?”
“The doctrine of necessity?” he said, bewildered.
Gertrude went to the other side of the table in pursuit of a ball. She now guessed what was coming, and was willing that it should come; not because she intended to accept, but because, like other young ladies experienced in such scenes, she counted the proposals of marriage she received as a Red Indian counts the scalps he takes.
“We have had a very pleasant time of it here,” he said, giving up as inexplicable the relevance of the doctrine of necessity. “At least, I have.”
“Well,” said Gertrude, quick to resent a fancied allusion to her private discontent, “so have I.”
“I am glad of that—more so than I can convey by words.”
“Is it any business of yours?” she said, following the disagreeable vein he had unconsciously struck upon, and suspecting pity in his efforts to be sympathetic.
“I wish I dared hope so. The happiness of my visit has been due to you entirely.”
“Indeed,” said Gertrude, wincing as all the hard things Trefusis had told her of herself came into her mind at the heels of Erskine’s unfortunate allusion to her power of enjoying herself.
“I hope I am not paining you,” he said earnestly.