“You are very kind and flattering,” he said, his face instantly hardening. “I sha’n’t tax you with explanation. I don’t suppose any woman could be induced to understand that a man may look at her—even stare at her—without disrespect, just as he might look at a sunset or a wonderful picture.” Then, he added half in apology, half in defiance: “I don’t know much about women anyway.”
For a moment, the girl stood with her face resolutely set, then she looked up again, meeting his eyes gravely, though he thought that she had stifled a mutinous impulse of her pupils to riffle into amusement.
“I must wait here for my uncle,” she told him. “Unless you have to stay, perhaps you had better go.”
The tall stranger swung off toward the betting shed without a backward glance, and engulfed himself in the mob where one had to fight and shoulder a difficult way in zigzag course.
Back of the forming lines of winners with tickets to cash, he caught sight of a young man almost as tall as himself and characterized by the wholesome attractiveness of one who has taken life with zest and decency. He wore also upon feature and bearing the stamp of an aristocracy that is not decadent. To the side of this man, the stranger shouldered his way.
“Since you abandoned me,” he accused, “I’ve been standing out there like a little boy who has lost his nurse.” After a pause, he added: “And I’ve seen a wonderful girl—the one woman in your town I want to meet.”
His host took him by the elbow, and began steering him toward the paddock gate.
“So, you have discovered a divinity, and are ready to be presented. And you are the scoffer who argues that women may be eliminated. You are—or were—the man who didn’t care to know them.”
The guest answered calmly and with brevity:
“I’m not talking about women. I’m talking about a woman—and she’s totally different.”