“I think so,” he replied. “I see you attended to all that thoroughly before you came down.”
“Yes,” said she with the air of half-serious, half-jesting complacency she could carry off so well. “I’m ready to the last button. Let’s sit over there—by the window.” Then, as they sat opposite each other: “Why are you so solemn?”
Again Roger had to struggle to keep himself in hand.
“Why do you avoid looking at me?” laughed she. And so glad was she to see him again that she had less difficulty than she had feared in hiding her anxiety, her feeling that she was playing her last stake in the game that seemed to her to mean lifelong happiness or lifelong wretchedness.
He colored, but contrived to smile and to look at her. It was an unsteady gaze, a grave smile. “I’ve come,” said he, “because I wish to urge you to go back home. Your father and I——”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted she. “Father has been here.”
“And you’re going back?”
“No—no, indeed. I’ve made the first step toward being independent. I’m going to keep on. Father’s a dear, but he’s not to be trusted. If he controls he tyrannizes. He might try not to do it, but he could not help himself. So—I’m to be a dressmaker.”
“What nonsense, Rix!” exclaimed he. “There’s nothing so detestable as an independent woman—a masculine woman.”
“One that has a will of her own and proposes to the man if she happens to feel like it?” suggested she, with dancing eyes.