“You would have answered it before, Mr. Alston? Yes, I am glad to feel the neglect was not intentional.”
“Intentional!”
“I—I thought, judging from the manner in which we last parted, and what you then said to me, that you—you preferred not to—see me again.”
“I was hurt then, hurt and bitter. I had no right to say what I said. I ask you to accept my apologies, Joan.”
She started a little at the sound of her name, but did not look at him.
“Perhaps you were right. I have thought it over since. Yes, I think I acted meanly; it was a thing a woman would do. That is where a woman fails—in small things—ideas, mean ideas come to her mind, just like that one. A man would not think such things. Yes, I am ashamed by the smallness of it. You said ‘ungenerous.’ I think a better expression would have been ‘mean-spirited.’”
“Joan!”
“But we need not discuss that. We owe one another apologies. Shall we take it that they are offered and accepted?”
He nodded. “Tea?” he asked, “or coffee?” For the hotel servant had come for his orders.
“Tea, please,” she said; “and—and this time I will not ask for the bill.” The faintest flicker of a smile crossed her lips, and then was gone, and he thought that in its place a look of weariness and unhappiness came into the girl’s face.