“Why, my dear girl,” said the swaggering American, “I didn’t know what had become of you. Did you mean to give me the slip?”
As he spoke, he offered her his arm with an air of confident devotion which nettled Gerard immensely.
And without so much as a glance at the timid, passionate English lover, whose look and attitude were eloquently expressive of his feelings, Miss Davison put her hand caressingly through Denver’s proffered arm.
“Of course I didn’t,” she said, in a very much more openly affectionate tone than she had ever used to Gerard. “How could you think I would do such a thing, Denver?”
Raising his hat mechanically, Gerard stepped back, with a look on his face as if he had been stabbed to the heart.
CHAPTER XVII
Gerard could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw how completely Miss Davison appeared to have forgotten his very existence the moment the American came up.
Denver, on his side, treated his rival as if he had never seen him before. Gerard thought, indeed, that the young American had perhaps failed to recognize him. For neither he nor Rachel had been speaking for some moments when they were startled by the figure appearing between them.
But that Miss Davison should behave with such marked incivility puzzled and bewildered him. Not the usual gracious smile and bow of farewell did she vouchsafe him as she walked away, listening amiably to the eager talk of the American, smiling in answer to his remarks, and behaving exactly as if she were enjoying his society to the utmost.
Gerard wondered what it meant. Was she a coquette? She had never given the least sign of it with him, having always been straightforward even in her reticence, not pretending that there was no mystery in her way of life, but treating it as one that she could not clear up, and that she wished him to leave unsolved also.