“Oh! you found a more interesting topic, and one of more importance to two people in the bloom of youth?”
“Ella!”
“Oh, my dear, I don’t mean anything dreadful. Only, you know as well as I do that a healthy man and a healthy woman will never talk, when they are alone together, about God, when they can talk about each other. I think Herbert Courtland is about the healthiest man I know, and I’m sure that you are the healthiest girl. You and he are most sympathetic companions. You are not at all stupidly coy, my sweet maiden.”
“I like Mr. Courtland, and why should I be coy?”
“Why, indeed? I wonder what the people who have just left us will say about it?”
“About it? About what!”
“You coyness—or absence of coyness. Will they say that you threw yourself at his head?”
(As a matter of fact, as is already known, that is just what the majority of the guests did say about her.)
Phyllis reddened and seemed—for a moment or two—almost angry. Then she made a little gesture, expressive of indifference, as she cried:
“After all, what does it matter what they said? I don’t care about them. It is for you I care, Ella—you, only you.”