"Gay, I am most awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. Will you forgive me?"
The girl sat up straight in her chair at that, and looked at him. She was too generous to ignore a frank appeal for pardon, but she had that within which demanded propitiation.
"Have you any explanation to offer?" she asked, and he answered:
"I clean forgot all about it."
She stared at him in exasperation and scorn, her eyes sparkling with anger, and he returned her gaze with his frank and fearless smile. "M'Schlega," the natives called him—"the man who always laughs whether good or bad comes to him."
Gay at last withdrew her face into the shadows where he could no longer see it clearly.
"I suppose you think that disappointing a girl and making her lose a dance is nothing," she said quietly.
"You misjudge me. If I had thought about it at all, it would never have happened. But the whole thing went clean out of my mind until it was too late to dress and get down here in time. Do you think I would purposely miss such a keen pleasure as it is to dance with you—and the honour of having your first waltz given me?"
She did not answer, but slowly her anger began to fade.
"I came down here as hard as I could belt, as soon as I remembered."