“So that’s the way of it? Better and better! I dragged you out! Really, Mr. Bransford, I feel that I should take you back to your chaperon at once. You might be compromised, you know!”
Goaded to desperation, he acted on this hint at once. He turned, with stiff and stilted speech:
“I will take you back to the window, Miss Hoffman. Then there is nothing for me to do but go. I am sorry to have caused you even a moment’s annoyance. To-morrow you will see how you have twisted—I mean, how completely you have misinterpreted everything I have said. Perhaps some day you may forgive me. Here is the window. Good-night—good-by!”
Miss Hoffman lingered, however.
“Of course, if you apologize——”
“I do, Miss Hoffman. I beg your pardon most sincerely for anything I have ever said or done that could hurt you in any way.”
“If you are sure you are sorry—if you take it all back and will never do such a thing again—perhaps I may forgive you.”
“I won’t—I am—I will!” said the abject and groveling wretch. Which was incoherent but pleasing. “I didn’t mean anything the way you took it; but I’m sorry for everything.”
“Then I didn’t beguile you to come? Or mask as a Friend in the hope that you would identify me?”
“No, no!”