"I don't like to hurt Robert's feelings," she said, turning away in her indecision.
"Oh, very well, if you don't wish to come with me!"
He flung himself sulkily into a chair.
Janet was astonished at his complete change of mood. She might have felt hurt, had she not had a woman's instinctive weakness for spoiling the man she was fond of.
She sat down irresolutely, and reflected that this would be the second time she had broken an engagement with Robert.
"It's idiotic," he said, rising, with a sense of deep injury. "Here is the most sensational race in a century, on a perfectly glorious day. And I'm mad to be with you."
"Perhaps Robert is, too," she said, a merry light dancing in her eyes.
"Of course, he's no fool. He'd rather be with a wonderful girl than an ordinary one. But what he wants more even than a wonderful girl is a chopping-block, any chopping-block, for his sociological theories. Why on earth did you leave your home, if all you crave is more instruction, and if the only freedom you want is the freedom to stand on more ceremony than before?"
"That has nothing to do with the matter, Claude," said Janet, refusing to ignore the truth simply because it was disagreeable. "Robert may not be offended at finding me away, but he is sure to be offended at finding me rude."
"It seems to me that you are far more concerned with Robert's feelings than with mine," said Claude, changing to a tone of melancholy reproach.