As she did not immediately answer, he added:
"Perhaps I had better go." His tone, however, somehow implied more of a threat than a suggestion; for since they had exchanged that fleeting glance Cyril had felt unreasonably reassured. Despite her coldness, the memory of her tender entreaties for his speedy return, buoyed up his conceit. She could not be as indifferent to him as she seemed, he argued to himself. However, as the moments passed and she offered no objection to his leaving her, his newly-aroused confidence evaporated.
"She does not want me!" he muttered to himself. "I must go." But he made no motion to do so; he could not.
"I can't leave her till I know how I have offended her.... There are so many arrangements to be made.... I must get in touch with her again,—" were some of the excuses with which he tried to convince himself that he had a right to linger.
He tried to read her face, but she had averted her head till he could see nothing but one small, pink ear, peeping from beneath her curls.
Her silence exasperated him.
"Why don't you speak to me? Why do you treat me like this?" he demanded almost fiercely.
"It is a little difficult to know how you wish to be treated!" Her manner was icy, but his relief was so intense that he scarcely noticed it.
"She is piqued!" he cried exultingly in his heart. "She is piqued, that is the whole trouble." He felt a man once more, master of the situation. "She probably expected me to—" He shrank from pursuing the thought any further as the hot blood surged to his face. He was again conscious of his helplessness. What could he say to her?
"Oh, if you could only understand!" he exclaimed aloud. "I suppose you think me cold and unfeeling? I only wish I were!... Oh, this is torture!"