"No right at all, and, as a matter of fact, when I said that I didn't mean to. Perhaps I was thinking of you, in part. I'm sorry I presumed. Only one doesn't like to see one's friends make fools of themselves—and that's what most men do in Paris, isn't it? Never mind. It's like our golf at Beverly. I prefer to have you play the game, and keep your own tally."
"The game?" demanded Andrew. "What game? What do you mean?"
"Oh, the game that all men play—the game in which we have no part, of which we must not even speak or hear, we women who respect ourselves. Don't let's talk of it. We're supposed to be friends, and for that reason I'll overlook what you don't absolutely force me to see. That's my part, isn't it?—to pretend I don't understand, even when I do? And I do—I do! I'm not cynical, but neither am I a fool. I've lived in Paris only a little while, but long enough to know that when one says 'boys will be boys' it sometimes means—oh, more than putty-blowers, and coming indoors with wet feet, and pulling out the parrot's tail-feathers!"
She stopped abruptly, with a perception that she was overdoing her assumption of unconcern, that she was talking wildly, that her voice had taken on an unnatural strain.
"I don't understand you in the least," said Andrew deliberately, "or at least I'm sure that what you seem to be saying isn't what you really mean. I can't believe that after all that has been—after all I have hoped was going to be—why, Margery, I came out here—no, I came all the way from America, to ask you—"
"Don't!"
Margery had risen with the word, and now, leaning against one of the marble columns of the little arbour, was looking away into the gloom.
"I want to believe in you," she added. "Leave me that, at least. Play the game, Andy—play the game!"
"The game—the game—the game!" exclaimed Andrew. "What is all this you're saying, Margery? What are you accusing me of? Is it possible you don't know I love you—that I've always loved you, ever since first I saw you? I'd have asked you long ago, at Beverly, but my grandfather begged me, almost commanded me, to wait. We were both so young. He wanted me to make sure. And, although I knew that I should never change, I felt he was right. I wanted you to have your chance, to come out, to see a little bit of life, before I tried to bind you to any promise. And when I heard that you were not coming back to America this year, that you had come out, and were the beauty and the belle of the Colony here, I knew that it was time to make a try for you, unless I was to lose you forever. So I came over here to tell you this—to ask you to marry me. And now—in Heaven's name, what is it, Margery? What has changed you? What do you mean by all this? If there is anything I can explain—"