“Oh, go on!” said Miss Riordan with mild impatience.
He walked away, swaggering, his gray felt hat to one side, his toes pointed out, his curly hair pushed up at the back of the neck by his high collar. He passed through the turnstile and out of the ferry house, and then, as far as she was concerned, he ceased to exist. Miss Riordan got up and sauntered toward the gates.
“He’s gone,” she thought. “He’d come back if I’d ask him, but I won’t!”
This was true. Mr. Pirini’s charm had been completely dissolved in his laughter. He had refused to believe in her gentleman.
Thinking of that elderly cavalier, her heart swelled with enormous aspirations. Here she was going to the country for a ramble, and carrying a high-class magazine and that mystically precious bouquet. It seemed to her that a monstrous burden had been lifted from her shoulders. Shame, resentment, and miserable anxiety had departed with Mr. Pirini.
She raised the bouquet to her face and sniffed it vigorously.
“I’m going to get a real comfortable pair of shoes!” she said to herself. “A size—two sizes—bigger!”
The freedom of Miss Riordan’s soul was achieved.[Pg 224]
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE