“Exactly!”
Was I to stand this? Was I to let him go away imagining that was the sort of girl I was? Was I to allow him, later on, to think of his official ex-fiancée (if he ever thought of her again) as being quite contented to accept a dangling dilettante with those tastes and that tie, an indoor object who pottered amiably about Art-galleries and girls’ studios, between the Tiny Theatre and the Cave of the Cub, a pampered amateur who couldn’t earn his living to save his life?... was a real man to think of me, married to That? No—fear!
So I said, very distinctly, “Even if his extremely easy attention hadn’t been caught by another girl—the girl he was seeing off to the Irish boat last night at Holyhead, if you must know!—even if he were the only man left on board a—a desert-island, I shouldn’t want to marry Sydney Vandeleur, so now you know!—And you needn’t think, as men always do think, that it’s sour grapes!” I rushed on before he could put in a word. “You might ask my chum about that—the very afternoon we had tea there I nearly offended her by letting her see what I thought of him!—even though he still imagined himself in love with me——”
Here I broke off, for a flying cricket-ball from one of those shrieking teams we passed had knocked off my companion’s straw hat. He had to pick it up and then to sling the ball in back to the small and grimy bowler before he could speak; and I, worked up to it now, didn’t see why he, the man, should be allowed the passing of every vote of censure, so I went on:
“As for your accusing me of making you look foolish, Mr. Waters, what about you, with me? What about the other girl? I was, after all, your official fiancée. And—and in that capacity, I might just as well have objected to your paying so much attention to her!”
“What’s this?” he took up very sharply, stopping on the path. “When have you seen me with another girl?”
“Why! Yesterday! The day before, too!”
“What——?” he said, long drawn-out. “Can you mean—can you mean the daughter of Monsieur Charrier?”
(What did he imagine? Could I mean the figure-head of the Gwladys Pritchard?)
“Of course I mean Mademoiselle Cha——”