“I think I could teach you to love,” he said, in all good faith. “I am going to try.”
She laughed.
“I never had any aptitude,” she said, “unless it was for gardening. You had better give me up, Doctor Fairbridge, as hopeless, and find an abler pupil.”
“I shall never,” he pronounced solemnly, “give you up. I do not change. I have met the one woman in the world for me. Oh, Miss Annersley,” he added, ceasing to be rhetorical and becoming therefore a much more interesting study to Peggy, “don’t be too hard on a fellow. I won’t bother you any more now. But one day I hope you will listen to me more patiently, and be a little kinder to me. I’m awfully keen on this.”
“Yes,” said Peggy. “I wish you weren’t. I’m just going to forget all you’ve said, and we will go on being friendly. I am a good deal keener on friendship than on the other relationship.”
“Are you?” he said, surprised, as though that were an attitude he had never contemplated before; that he found, indeed, difficult to reconcile with his ideas of girls. “I’m not. But the half loaf, you know... I will content myself with that for the present—only for the present.”
How, he wondered, when he returned with Peggy to the drawing-room—which he would have preferred not to do, and only agreed to on her showing him that it might be remarked if he left without taking leave in the usual manner—had he been deceived into making such a miscalculation? Clearly Peggy was a heartless little flirt. She had assuredly encouraged him. He was conscious as he entered the drawing-room in her wake of a slight diminution in his regard for her. There is nothing like a wound to the pride for clearing a man’s vision.
“For goodness’ sake,” exclaimed Peggy, looking back at him over her shoulder as he emerged behind her through the glass doors, “don’t wear so long a face. It will be remarked.”
Doctor Fairbridge, who felt little inclination towards cheerfulness, mended his expression none the less; but the smile which he summoned to his aid was rather forced.
“I can’t act,” he said reproachfully. “You’ve hurt me. I’m feeling sore, Miss Annersley.”