The girl bit her lip, and suddenly put her hand on his arm. "Oh, Peter," she whispered, "it wasn't like you—not a bit!"
"You think," he said, dispassionately, "that I should have been justified—more, that I ought to have jumped into the mill-stream in flood to save that dog?"
But the girl made no answer: she only looked miserably at the man's averted face.
"I don't know," she said at length. "I don't know. It's so—so difficult to know what to say."
Gently Peter Benton removed her hand from his arm. "That is quite a good enough answer for me, Sybil." He faced her gravely. "The thing is unfortunate, because I was going to ask you—to-night——" His jaw set and he turned away for a moment. Then he faced her again. "But never mind that now: the situation, as they say in Parliament, does not arise. I would like you, however, to know that I do not think about the matter at all. For one brief second this afternoon I did think about it; for the fraction of a minute I had made up my mind to go in after the dog. And then I realized how utterly unjustifiable such an action would be. Since that moment—as I say—I have not thought about the matter at all."
"And supposing it had been Ruffles?" asked the girl, slowly.
For a while the man hesitated. Then: "My decision would have been the same," he answered, turning on his heel.
II
Inside the house the Celebrated Actor and the Rising Barrister were each proving to their own satisfaction, if not to their partners', that the modern dance held no terrors for them. The two boys were getting warmer and more energetic; Lady Vera, after chatting for a little with the Great Doctor and the Well-known Soldier, had left them to their own devices, and had joined the two elderly ladies on the sofa.
In a corner of the room sat Captain Seymour talking to Madge Saunderson, though, incidentally, she was doing most of the talking; and with them sat the two other girls. Every now and then Seymour frowned uncertainly, and shook his head: the invariable signal for all three girls to lean forward in their most beseeching manner and look adoringly up into his face.