She approached him as if to say good-bye. “I shall always be glad to see you, though. I’ll send you a check.”
Taswell, sensible young man as he was, was hurt to the quick. “Oh, Mrs. Kaplan . . . !” he said, very differently from the first time.
“Why . . . what’s the matter?” asked Elaine, surprised.
He raised his eyes full to hers. “I love you,” he said.
Elaine turned away with a quick movement. Taswell’s eyes fastened on the white V of her back that showed, instinct with life, under the dead silk. After a moment or two she said coldly: “Why did you feel it necessary to tell me that?”
“I didn’t ‘feel it necessary’,” he said sorely. “It sprang out of me. . . . What harm can it do? I am going.”
“Oh, no particular harm,” she said. “But I hate to be made to appear unfeeling. . . . All this sort of thing simply makes me impatient, it’s so . . . so . . . I don’t know. Men feel obliged to whoop themselves up to it, and women to simper.” She looked around at him scornfully. “What, really, Taswell! A man of your capacity! How can you expect to do any serious work?”
“I can’t . . . now,” he muttered, avoiding her glance.
“Why, I must be seven or eight years older than you.”
“Oh!” he said painfully, sweeping away the suggestion.