He withdrew his hand, not seeming to notice that Louise had failed to see it.
"Yes, I have been walking," put in Louise, in no wise stiffly, but with an air of preoccupied withdrawal which she genuinely felt. "As to what you call me, I believe I should prefer to be known by my name."
Jesse, remembering what Judd had said as to the likelihood of his being frozen or shrivelled, laughed inwardly. He rather enjoyed being rebuffed by women—at first. It made the game keener. None of them, he remembered now with complaisancy, continued to rebuff him for very long.
"Pardon me, Miss Treharne," he said, with a certain languishing air which Louise found even more offensive than his initial familiarity. "I thought, when the title was so spontaneously applied to you on Sunday night, that perhaps you found it agreeable. But it is difficult to gauge—women." He dwelt upon the word "women," thinking that, considering how recently she had left school, it might flatter her.
Louise chose to talk commonplaces. Her bed-rock genuineness made it impossible for her to affect an interest in a visitor which she did not feel. And her lack of interest in Jesse was complicated by her growing dislike for him.
"I am doubly disappointed," said Jesse after a pause which he did not find embarrassing. Nothing embarrassed Jesse when he had his mind definitely set upon a purpose. "First, I had hoped, as I say, that, not having been out, you would honor me by accepting the use of my car. Second, I am desolated because you are wearing a hat. I had been promising myself another glimpse of your superb hair. Is it banal to put it that way? I am afraid so. But consider the temptation! Was it Aspasia or Cleopatra whose hair was of the glorious shade of yours—or both?"
"Mr. Jesse," said Louise, now quite dégagé, facing him squarely and speaking with the greatest deliberation, "I seem to find, from my two limited conversations with you, that you are suffering under some sort of a misapprehension as to me. You will discover that yourself, I think, if you will take the trouble to recur to several things you already have said to me after an acquaintanceship, all told, of perhaps ten minutes. Suppose we seek a less personal plane? I am too familiar with my hair to care to have it made a subject of extended remarks on the part of men whom I scarcely know. There are less pointed themes. Permit me to suggest that we occupy ourselves in finding them."
"By God, a broadside!" said Jesse to himself, not in the least abashed; his admiration always grew for women who trounced him—at first. "I didn't think she had it in her! And Judd, the fat imbecile, called her an iceberg! She is a volcano!"
Aloud, he said, with a neatly-assumed air of subjection and penitence:
"Well delivered, Miss Treharne. But I merit it. I have made the error of supposing—"