"Eh?" says Monica, puzzled in her turn. "I don't understand you: I only want to know if you are one of the particular Desmonds?"
"I suppose not," he replies, now openly amused, "because I regret to say we have never yet done anything worthy of note, or likely to distinguish us from all the other Desmonds, whose name is legion."
"If you are going to tell me you live at Coole," says Miss Beresford, in a tone that is almost tragic, "I warn you it will be the last straw, and that I shan't be able to bear it."
"I am not going to tell you anything," protests he.
"But you must," declares she, illogically. "I may as well hear the worst at once. Go on," heroically; "tell me the truth. Do you live there?"
"I'm awfully afraid I do," says Mr. Desmond, feeling somehow, without knowing why, distinctly ashamed of his name and residence.
"I knew it! I felt it!" says Monica, with the calmness of despair. "Take me back to the bank at once,—this very instant, please. Oh, what a row I should get into if they only knew!"
Very justly offended at the turn affairs have taken, Mr. Desmond rows her in silence to the landing-place, in silence gives her his hand to alight, in silence makes his boat safe, without so much as a glance at her, although he knows she is standing a little way from him, irresolute, remorseful, and uncertain.
He might, perhaps, have maintained this dignified indifference to the end, but that, unfortunately lifting his eyes, he catches sight of her in this repentant attitude, with her head bent down, and her slim fingers toying nervously with the lilies of his own gathering.
This picture flings dignity to the winds. Going up to her, he says, in a would-be careless but unmistakably offended voice, "May I ask what I have done, that 'they,' whoever they are, should consider you had disgraced yourself by being with me for half an hour?"