Peggy looked up.
"Now you are getting romantic again," she said reprovingly. "No, it is nothing of the kind. My friend has had to be rather brutal to a man, and she feels sorry for him, and she is afraid he must think rather badly of her—that's all."
"Has she been flirting with the poor creature?" demanded Jean Leslie, in a voice of thunder.
"No. She is not that sort of girl."
"Then where does the brutality come in? There is no brutality in putting a man in his place, provided you do it in time. As soon as a woman sees that a man is preparing to fall in love with her—and she can usually tell about five minutes after she has made his acquaintance—and she doesn't feel like wanting him, she should get him at arm's length at once! Have—has your friend not been overlong in adopting that precaution?"
"She couldn't do it before," explained Peggy, rather eagerly. "They were thrown together in a very unusual way. She saw it coming, but could not do anything to prevent it. And now the man has gone away; and I'm—she is sure he thinks—"
Jean Leslie handed her guest a fresh cup of tea.
"Are you certain," she enquired, "that this friend of yours wanted to keep the young man at arm's length?"
Peggy twisted her long fingers together.
"I rather fancy, from what she said, that she cared for him a bit," she admitted.