'I'm not sure,' answered Van Torp. 'Don't.'
The last word was not spoken at all with an accent of warning, but it was not said in a begging tone either. Margaret's short laugh followed it instantly. He took the cue she offered, and went on speaking in his ordinary manner.
'I'm not a bad dog if you don't bully me, and if you feed me at regular hours and take me for a walk now and then. I don't pretend I'm cut out for a French pet, because I'm not. I'm too big for a lap-dog, and too fond of sport for the drawing-room, I suppose. A good useful dog generally is, isn't he? Maybe I'm a little quarrelsome with other dogs, but then, they needn't come bothering around!'
Margaret was amused, or pretended to be, but she was also thinking very seriously of the future, and asking herself whether she ought to send for Logotheti at once, [{178}] or not. Van Torp would certainly not leave Bayreuth at a moment's notice, at her bidding, and if he stayed she could not now refuse to see him, with any show of justice. She thought of a compromise, and suddenly stood still in the lane.
'You said just now that you would not say over again any of those things you have told me to-night. Do you mean that?'
'Yes, I mean it.'
'Then please promise that you won't. That's all I ask if you are going to spend the next two days here, and if I am to let you see me.'
'I promise,' Van Torp answered, without hesitation.
She allowed herself the illusion that she had both done the right thing and also taken the position of command; and he, standing beside her, allowed himself to smile at the futility of what she was requiring of him with so much earnestness, for little as he knew of women's ways he was more than sure that the words he had spoken that night would come back to her again and again; and more than that he could not hope at present. But she could not see his face clearly.
'Thank you,' she said. 'That shall be our compact.'