“You must break mine or Van Santen’s,” he said dryly, “if you go on acting as you’ve done this evening, being one woman, and a very sweet though puzzling one, to me, and quite another, a brilliant, charming one, to him. How am I to believe that you like one of us better than the other? You were certainly doing your best to make him think he was the man you liked. I don’t want you to make a fool of me like that. I can’t deny that you could if you wished.”
She sighed softly.
“I’m not going to tell you I like you,” she said gently. “You are welcome, if you wish, to believe I don’t care in the least.”
“No, no, I’d rather you should pretend you cared for me—at least, I think I’d rather!” stammered poor Gerard, who was struggling against the impulse to yield himself wholly to the personal fascination she exercised over him.
She looked at him steadily, but with eyes so mournful, so full of some deep-seated distress, that he was seized by an overpowering desire to know what the secret was which made her such a tantalizing, maddening mystery. Why was she so sweet to him, after having been but a short time before in his very presence, just as irresistible, in a wholly different fashion, to another man?
Was she a coquette, after all? Was she only trying to show her power, by bringing to her feet a man whom she had recently disgusted by her open encouragement of another?
Miss Davison read his thoughts.
“I don’t pretend—to you,” she said simply. “I don’t tell you I care for you. You can think, if you like, that I like someone else better.”
“But I don’t like to think so!” burst out poor Gerard.
She went on imperturbably.