“That you carried on with that horrid man and spoiled our friendship.”
“Didn’t carry on, and he isn’t a horrid man, and our friendship isn’t spoiled, and I’m not sorry.”
“Not sorry that our friendship isn’t spoiled?”
“No; ’course I’m not! You don’t s’pose I want it to be spoiled, do you?”
“Well, you certainly did all in your power to spoil it.”
“Now, look here, Philip Van Reypen, I’ve already exhausted myself this evening patching up one spoiled friendship, and it’s just about worn me out! Now if ours needs any patching up, you’ll have to do it yourself. I shan’t raise a finger toward it!”
Patty leaned back among her pillows, looking lovely and provoking. She tried to scowl at him, but her dimples broke through the scowl and turned it into a smile. Whereupon, she dropped her eyes, and tried to assume a look of bored indifference.
Van Reypen looked at her. “So she won’t raise a finger, won’t she? And I’ve got to do it myself, have I? Well, then, I suppose I’ll have to raise her finger for her.” Patty’s hand was lying idly in her lap, and he picked up her slender pink forefinger slowly, and with an abstracted air. “I don’t know how raising a finger helps to patch up a spoiled friendship,” he went on, as if to himself, “but she seems to think it does, and so, of course, it does! Well, now, mademoiselle, your finger is raised,—is our quarrel all patched up?”
Philip held her finger in one hand, and clasped her whole hand with the other, as he smiled into her eyes, awaiting an answer to his question.
Patty looked up suddenly, and quickly drew her hand away.