"But since you are already separated from——"
"Yes, that makes it pleasanter all around, doesn't it?" she led him on most treacherously.
"Why, of course—that's what I was saying," he blundered. "Now I can ask you to——"
"Mason, I've a frightful headache, the sun perhaps—and I think I will go home and lie down, if you don't mind."
He looked up in some amazement at the lord of day half hidden by the haze in his November station, and it suddenly occurred to him that woman is a various and mutable proposition always.
"What's the matter with you, anyway?"
"Nothing," she responded with deliberate unconvincingness, "nothing in the world, but a headache." She held out her hand. "Don't bother to come with me. We might be seen. Good-bye." And she was off.
It was a winding gravel path and she was lost behind a curving hedge before he started in pursuit. She quickened her pace when she heard his step behind and it was almost a walking race before he overtook her.
"Georgia," he exclaimed, somewhat ruffled by her unreasonableness. She neither turned her head nor answered.
"Georgia!" he repeated more loudly. Then he took her wrist and forcibly arrested her.