“It is certainly very foolish,” she admitted.
“I don’t see why,” he protested, “you should disapprove of me so utterly.”
“I do not disapprove,” she told him. “I have not the right. I have not the desire to have the right. Only, since you will have me tell you, I am interested in your work. I like to talk about it, to hear you talk when you are enthusiastic. It does not amuse me to see you come down to the level of these others, who while their morning away doing nothing. You are not at home amongst them. You have no place there. When you come to me as a young man in Society, you bore me.”
She stepped into the taximeter and drove away, with a farewell nod, abrupt although not altogether unkindly. Yet as she looked behind, a few seconds later, her face was very much softer—her eyes were almost regretful.
“It may hurt him,” she said to herself, “but it is very good that he should hear the truth.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
A WOMAN’S TONGUE
The man was harmless enough, to all appearance—something less than middle-aged, pale, and with stubbly brown moustache. He was dressed in blue serge clothes, and a bowler hat a little ancient at the brim. Neither his appearance nor his manner was remarkable for any particular intelligence. Yet the girl who looked him over was at once suspicious.