"Oh, oh, you didn't—you didn't—but you did!" she choked, swaying her body back and forth. The next moment she was on her feet, facing him, a new something in her eyes. The laughter was quite gone. "You needn't worry, Mr. Donald Estey." She spoke hurriedly, and with all the wild abandon of her old self. "I wasn't asking you to marry me—so you don't have to refuse." Her voice quivered with hurt pride.
"Why, of course not, of course not, my dear lady!" He caught at the straw. "I never thought—"
"Yes, you did; and you was floundering around trying to find a way to say no. I wasn't good enough for you. And that's just what I was trying to find out, too,—but it hurt, just the same, when I did find out!"
"Oh, but, Mrs. Darling, I didn't mean—"
"Yes, you did. I saw it in your eyes, and in the way you drew back. Only I—I didn't mean you. I never thought of your taking it that way—that I wanted to marry you. It was some one else that I meant."
"Some one else?" The stupefaction in the man's face deepened.
"Yes. You don't know him. But they said you was—were, I mean, like him; that what you liked, he would like. See? And that's why I tried to find out what—what you did like, so I could learn to be what would please him."
The petted idol of unnumbered drawing-rooms blinked his eyes.
"You mean you were using me as an—er—understudy?" he demanded.
"Yes—no—I don't know. I was just trying to walk and talk and breathe and move the way you wanted me to, so I could do it by and by for—him."