“There it goes!” he said, as he scraped back his chair. “I supposed some such story would get out.”
“But, didn’t you?” she persisted.
Under her insistence he arose from the table irascibly. He stood looking at her while a hard smile rose to his lips.
“You’re deeply concerned for Rankin, aren’t you?”
“Jerome,” she said quietly, looking at him with wide, unwinking eyes, “it is not Mr. Rankin I am concerned for—not for him half so much as for you.”
He was led into sarcasm for a moment.
“You are quite solicitous—” he began, and then evidently thinking better of it, he tried to laugh her out of her seriousness.
“It’s no use, Em,” he said patronizingly, as he lighted his cigarette, “you women can never understand politics.”
“We understand honor, though,” she said, “although men, in their personal way of allotting the attributes to the sexes, say we don’t.”
He gave her a reproachful look, and left.