'I can't forget,' she answered in a low voice.
'We both have good memories, it seems,' he retorted with a short laugh as he held up a curtain for her to pass, and turned away.
It was after supper, and most of the children had been weeded out to be replaced by children of a larger growth. Mark came up to Mabel as she stood by the doorway while the musicians were playing the first few bars of a waltz, and each couple was waiting for some other to begin before them. 'You promised me a dance,' he said, 'in reward for my agility as an elephant. Aren't your duties over now?'
'I think everybody knows everybody now, and no one is sitting out,' said Mabel. 'But really I would rather not dance just yet; I'm a little tired.' For the Fräulein was still away with her family in Germany, and most of the work had fallen upon Mabel, who was feeling some need of a rest. Mark did not try to persuade her.
'You must be,' he agreed. 'Will you—do you mind sitting this dance out with me?'
She made no objection, and they were presently sitting together under the soft light of the ribbed Chinese lanterns in a fernery at the back of the rooms.
'When we go back,' said Mabel, 'I want to introduce you to a Miss Torrington, a great admirer of your book. But you don't care for such things, do you?'
'I wish with all my soul I might never hear of the book again,' said Mark gloomily. 'I—I beg your pardon! It sounds ungrateful. And yet—if you knew—if you only knew!' He was in one of his despondent moods just then, when his skeleton came out of the cupboard and gibbered at him. What right had he, with this fraud on his soul, to be admitted even to the ordinary friendship of a sweet and noble girl? What would she say to him if she knew? And for a moment he felt a mad impulse to tell her.
'I wish you would tell me,' she said gently, as if answering the impulse. But the suggestion, put into words, sobered him. She would despise him; she must. He could not bear to see his shame reflected in her eyes. So he told her half-truths only.
'It is only that I am so tired of being tied to a book,' he said passionately. 'Tied? I am a book. Everyone I meet sees in me, not a man to be judged and liked for himself, but something to criticise and flatter and compare with the nature he revealed in print.'