He removed his hat again. He spoke solemnly.
“I will,” he said—even as he had said it, thirteen years ago, at St. Jephtha’s altar.
“Thank you ever so much, Mr. Andrews. Now I must run along in....”
“Mrs. Mearely!”
“Yes? Were you about to say something?”
(Was he about to say something? She was leading him on—in blue!)
“Mrs. Mearely! I have said it. Mrs. Mearely, did you understand the purport of what I said to you just now?”
“What did you say to me just now, Mr. Andrews?”
Such smiles leaning to him over the low wall; such large blue eyes, flecked and changing from grave to gay; and behind and about this entrancing jewel of a woman her opulent setting of the Villa Rose estate! He grew dizzy. Her dress was blue; and she was eager to hear him repeat the declaration he had already made to her! This could mean only one thing, he was convinced. She had observed his devotion and secretly coveted him. She had noticed that he hovered and had approved his brooding flutter. In short, she had donned that blue satin to allure him; and had hung her charms upon the wall, that morning, because she well knew he must pass by.
Mr. Albert Andrews was the average, simple, masculine creature, making up for other deficiencies by an excellent conceit of himself. The tradition of his sex—that woman is the pursuer, because she recognizes the superiority of the male and wishes to entrap a specimen of the wonderful species for her glory—comprised the major part of Mr. Andrews’s knowledge of the feminine. He had not learned more during his marriage, because his satisfied opacity was proof against all attempts to instruct.