"But he don't consider himself as engaged!" The words were almost out of Haight's mouth, but he shut his teeth against them and kept silence—he hardly knew why.
"Suppose Vandover were out of the question," he said, getting up and smiling in order not to seem as serious as he really was.
"Ah," she said, smiling back at him. "I don't know; that's a hard question to answer. I've never asked myself that question."
"Well, I'm saving you the trouble, you see," he answered, still smiling. "I am asking it for you."
"But I don't want to answer such a question off-hand like that; how can I tell? It would only be perhaps, just now."
Young Haight answered quickly that "just now" he would be contented with that "perhaps"; but Turner did not hear this. She had spoken at the same time as he, exclaiming, "But what is the good of talking of that? Because no matter what happened I feel as though I could not break my promise to Van, even if I should want to. Because I have talked like this, Dolly," she went on more seriously, "you must not be deceived or get a wrong impression. You understand how things are, don't you?"
"Oh, yes," he answered, still trying to carry it off with a laugh. "I know, I know. But now I hope you won't let anything I have said bother you, and that things will go on just as if I hadn't spoken, just as if nothing had happened."
"Why, of course," she said, laughing with him again. "Of course, why shouldn't they?"
They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the door with his hat in his hand ready to go.
He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque, dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile: