"No, thank you!"
So then where should she turn but, naturally, to Eddie? She was very unhappy. She felt ashamed of herself now, terribly lonely, banished, and disgraced. Of course Polly would tell Eddie—perhaps already had told him—all that Angelica had told her, all about that disgraceful affair with Vincent, and she would lose, or perhaps already had lost, Eddie’s regard. Just when she needed it so, when she had been so cruelly repudiated by Vincent!
"Well, anyway, I want to see him," she said to herself. "Anyway, he won’t fly out at me, even if he thinks I’ve been awful!"
She couldn’t find him for a long time. She wandered about the house like a lost soul; and then at last she came across him on the veranda, sitting there smoking, in the chilly October evening.
"Mr. Eddie!" she said softly, from the doorway.
"Oh! Yes?" he answered pleasantly. "Is it you, Angelica? Do you want anything?"
"I just wanted to speak to you——”
"Shall I come in?"
"I’ll come out," she suggested, glad of the chance to talk in the dark, and groped her way to the corner where she saw the light of his cigar.
"It’s a dark night," he said.