“I shouldn’t bother; probably it wasn’t him at all; only some third-rate actor.”
Dudley tried to see her face, not sure if she was serious or not, but she kept her head averted as she added:
“Quite possibly it was Lord Bounce.”
“You are always treating a serious subject with levity,” he complained. “What am I to think? Do you or do you not believe your escort was Sir Edwin Crathie?”
“Well, as he was awfully afraid I might be a militant suffragette, I think he really was a Cabinet Minister.”
“I hope you entirely undeceived him on that score,” drily.
“Not at all. I told him I was tingling to scratch him and bite him,” and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips.
Dudley relapsed into silent displeasure, and for a few moments neither spoke. Then Hal, with her garments on her arm, came round to him with a frank, affectionate air.
“Dudley, don’t make mountains out of molehills over nothing. I know I am a little wild. I can’t help it—we seem to have got mixed up somehow. You’ve got all the decorum and nice, refined feelings of a charming woman, and I’ve got the enterprise and ‘don’t-care’ spirit of a man. It isn’t any use fighting against facts. You must take me as I am, and make the best of it. I can’t change now; and I don’t know that I would if I could.”
“I don’t suppose you would. You positively glory in the very traits that I deplore”; but his voice sounded mollified.