"But why?"
"I've been so utterly bored by it myself."
Her hand slid into his.
"Then you never will be again," she whispered, with a touching confidence.
"No, not on my own account; of course not," said Rigden. "If only——"
And he sighed.
"If only what?"
For he had stopped short.
"If only you don't think better of all this—and of me!"
The girl withdrew her hand, and for a moment regarded Rigden critically, as he leant forward in his chair and she leant back in hers. She did not care for apologetic love-making, and she had met with more kinds than one in her day. Rigden had not apologised when he proposed to her the very week they met (last Cup-week), and, what was more to his credit, had refused to apologise to her rather formidable family for so doing. Whereupon they were engaged, and all her world wondered. No more Government House—no more parties and picnics—but "one long picnic instead," as her brother Theodore had once remarked before Moya, with that brutal frankness which lent a certain piquancy to the family life of the Bethunes. And the mere thought of her brother accounted for so much in her mind, that Moya was leaning forward again in a moment, and her firm little hand was back in its place.