“But I can’t understand any reason,” she protested.
Ralph shook his head. “Of course you can’t, and there isn’t any. In an idiotic moment I simply said a very stupid thing to Terry Benton without realizing just how ugly and ill-mannered it was. Ever since I have been trying my best to forget I ever said it. You are the one person in the world whom I would rather not have brought into such a discussion, and to find that out is a part of my punishment. I wonder if you can believe, Peggy, how sorry and ashamed I am, and have been ever since I made a foolish wager which I regretted the moment after I had gotten into it. You are such a clean, straightforward person, Peggy, I don’t suppose you can even imagine how a human being can do an ugly thing and yet not be altogether horrid.”
Ralph was talking like a boy, forgetting that he was a number of years older than his companion.
But Peggy’s eyes had changed their expression and were no longer puzzled.
“I might, be willing to accept your point of view, Ralph, if, after you had made the wager in which I was to be a victim to your vanity, you had paid no attention to me. But I can’t forget that it was afterwards you began being agreeable to me, asking me to take walks and to dance with you. If you did not care about winning your wager, why did you not continue to politely ignore me, as you had always done? Well you were successful enough, because I did like you very much until now.”
Peggy’s cheeks were scarlet and yet she could be nothing but truthful.
“I have a dreadful temper and I am so angry with you now, I feel as if I never wish to see or speak to you again. Please let me go back to camp alone.”
Ralph shook his head.
“No, I won’t do that,” he answered quietly, “but I will not trouble you along the way—not even by asking your forgiveness. Some day, perhaps, I may be able to prove to you how truly sorry I am. Now I can’t even pretend that I have any more right to your friendship.”