“What for?” she asked, in surprise.
“For the way I behaved last time we—we had a talk,” he answered.
“Oh, then,” she commented; and it seemed to him that she had almost made an effort to retain the non-committal expression she was affecting.
“You may remember,” he went on, “that I asked you to marry me, and that you refused, and that you told me you didn’t love me at all, but you did like me—”
“What’s the use of going over all that again?” she asked.
“I must make myself right with you, Miss Minnie,” he urged. “You said we could be friends, and I was all broke up then, and I didn’t know just what I was saying, and I told you friendship wasn’t any good to me, and if I couldn’t have you there wasn’t anything else I wanted. I must have been rude, indeed, and it has worried me ever since.”
“I’ll forgive you, if that’s what you mean,” she responded. “I hadn’t really thought about it twice. It isn’t of any consequence.”
“It is to me,” he returned. “Now I’ve changed my mind, and if you will offer the friendship again I’ll accept it gladly.”
“Why, Dr. Demarest!” she said, smiling, but with a flash in her gray eyes, “of course we can be good friends, just as we have always been. And now you needn’t talk any more about this foolish misunderstanding.”
So saying she started ahead. They had been climbing a hill, and now they had on their left a broad meadow, gay with groups of tennis-players. At an opening on the right a mounted policeman sat his horse as immovable as an equestrian statue. Just before them were two gentlemen with impatient trotters trying to get a clear space; and there was also a double file of young men and girls from some riding-school, under the charge of a robust German riding-master.