The precipitations of the past week had suddenly resolved themselves an hour since into a half-conscious determination to show Polly her place and Pelham that he was still hopelessly in her toils. But when she found herself alone with him in the dining-room she had anathematized herself as a fool and retreated in stiff panic from the results of any such exercise of power. Now she suddenly felt light-hearted once more. Her intense self-consciousness had fled with her gale of mirth. Blessed be humor.
No reason they shouldn’t be friends until he went out of her life altogether. And she realized sharply that her most crying want this past week had been someone to talk to, a confidant. She had got used to talking things out.
She, too, threw out a line.
“Too bad Polly had to desert you today. I’m a poor substitute. Don’t know exactly how or what I’ve been feeling this last week. Remorse, I think, for not feeling remorse. Been as glum as—can’t think of anything emphatic enough. Felt, rather, as if I’d been stirred up with a spoon and nothing would settle. Better not try to diagnose me,” she added hastily. His gaze was very intense. “Are you and Polly engaged?” She shot out the question and then dropped her eyes in consternation. She had had no intention of being direct.
“Certainly not. Neither I nor Polly has ever thought of such a thing.”
“You’re as blind as a bat!” She fastened her eyes on him with her fiercest expression and he felt as if they had pushed him to the wall and pinned him there. “Of course she expects you to marry her,” she said with harsh and bitter emphasis. “So does everybody else. You’d be a cad if you didn’t——”
Pelham gave a violent exclamation and sprang to his feet, overturning his chair. “How dare you use such a word to me!” he shouted, his face blazing. “After what I’ve been through—done—renounced! You little tiger-cat! I wish to God you were a man!”
He felt no love for her at that moment. He almost hated her. He had had words both high and hot with men who disagreed with him, been abused by unreasonable patients, but it was the first time the most contemptible word in the language had been hurled at him, and the indignity stung him to fury. “Yes, by God! I wish you were a man. I’d beat you black and blue and rub your nose in the dirt.”
Gita had gazed at him fascinated for a moment and then dropped her eyes. A curious thrill rippled over her nerves, and she hid her hands under the table.
“I’ll take it back,” she said hastily. “You know how carelessly and exaggeratedly we use words these days. I only meant that any girl would expect a proposal—after such devotion——”