“I—I couldn’t get courage,” she stammered. “I—I am a little frightened of you.”
The night air was so clear that he could hear every one of her fluttering whispers, yet he pretended that he had not caught them, and launched into a raging philippic against the ingratitude of women in general.
It accomplished her confusion. She had plainly overstepped the limit set around his forbearance, and, dropping her bag on the grass, she put both hands up to her eyes.
She was crying—the darling—and his heart was bleeding for her, but he wished to find out the particulars of this night excursion. “You have deceived me,—you pretended that you would go away with me in the morning.”
“So I am going,” she cried, desperately. “I am only in fun.”
He paused in his ravings. “In fun—”
“Yes; I am only making believe to go to see that girl. I watched you come down here. I am not going to leave you, ’Steban, really. Look in that bag—there isn’t even a toothbrush in it. It’s only stuffed with paper. I am sick of this quiet place. I will be good if you will take me to-morrow.”
“Never—false, deceitful one!” he began, in tones made hollow by a hand placed over his mouth, but his tones were too hollow, too mournful. He was not a first-class actor, and she was too sharp to be deceived any longer.
She dropped her hands from her eyes. She could not see him, but she could plainly hear that, being now discovered, he had given way to his torments of suppressed laughter.
“You mean, mean thing!” she cried, wrathfully; then she wheeled suddenly, threw the bag in his direction, and rushed off through the darkness.