“Is that all you have to say?” asked Miss Gwendoline after a moment.
“Let me put those magazines in the trap for you?” said Bob, making a desperate recovery and indicating the smart rig at the curb as he spoke.
“Thanks,” she answered. “Make yourself useful.” And gave them to him. But there was now a slight reserve on her part. His manner had slightly puzzled her. There was a constraint, or hold-offishness about him that seemed to her rather a new symptom in him. What did it mean? Had he misinterpreted her “Will you?” The violet eyes flashed slightly, then she laughed. How ridiculous!
“There! You did it very well,” she commended him mockingly.
“Thanks,” said Bob awkwardly, and shifted. It would be better if she let him go. Those awful things he might say?—that she might make him say? But she showed no disposition to permit him to depart at once. She lingered. People didn’t usually seek to terminate talks with her. As a rule they just stuck and stuck around and it was hard to get rid of them. Did she divine his uneasiness? Bob showed he certainly wasn’t enjoying himself. The violet eyes grew more and more puzzled.
“What a brilliant conversationalist you are to-day, Mr. Bennett!” she remarked with a trace of irony in her tones.
“Yes; I don’t feel very strong on the talk to-day,” answered Bob truthfully.
Miss Gwendoline pondered a moment on this. She had seen young men embarrassed before—especially when she was alone with them. Sometimes her decidedly pronounced beauty had a disquieting effect on certain sensitive young souls. Bob’s manner recalled the manner of one or two of those others just before they indulged, or tried to indulge, in unusual sentiments, or too close personalities. Miss Gerald’s long sweeping lashes lowered ominously. Then they slowly lifted. She didn’t feel to-day any inordinate endeavor or desire on Bob’s part to break down the nice barriers of convention and to establish that more intimate and magnetic atmosphere of a new relationship. Well, that was the way it should be. It must be he was only stupid at the moment. That’s why he acted strange and unlike himself.
Perhaps he had been up late the night before. Maybe he had a headache. His handsome face was certainly very sober. There was a silent appeal to her in that blond head, a little over half-a-head above hers. Miss Gwendoline’s red lips softened. What a great, big, nice-looking boy he was, after all! She let the lights of her eyes play on him more kindly. She had always thought Bob a good sort. He was an excellent partner in tennis and when it came to horses—they had certainly had some great spurts together. She had tried to follow Bob but it had sometimes been hard. His “jumps” were famous. What he couldn’t put a horse over, no one else could. For the sake of these and a few kindred recollections, she softened.
“I suppose men sometimes do feel that way the next day,” she observed with tentative sympathy. One just had to forgive Bob. She knew a lot of cleverer men who weren’t half so interesting on certain occasions. Intellectual conversation isn’t everything. Even that soul-to-soul talk of the higher faddists sometimes palled. “I suppose that’s why you’re walking.”