“Mr. Tavernake,” she asked, suddenly, “I must ask you something. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”
“Nothing,” he assured her, with some emphasis.
“You seem to take everything so much as a matter of course,” she protested.
“Why not?”
“Oh, I don't know,” she replied, a little feebly. “Only—”
She found relief in a sudden and perfectly natural laugh.
“Come,” he said, “that is better. I am glad that you feel like laughing.”
“As a matter of fact,” she declared, “I feel much more like crying. Don't you know that you were very foolish last night? You ought to have left me alone. Why didn't you? You would have saved yourself a great deal of trouble.”
He nodded, as though that point of view did, in some degree, commend itself to him.
“Yes,” he admitted, “I suppose I should. I do not, even now, understand why I interfered. I can only remember that it didn't seem possible not to at the time. I suppose one must have impulses,” he added, with a little frown.