“Oh, no, no,” she exclaimed, eagerly and protestingly.
“You have avoided me so studiously lately,” he went on, “that really I began to fear it was marked by other people.”
Always that fear of what others would say. Vivienne smiled demurely. “You mistake me; I never felt so grateful to you—not even when I was a little girl and used to carry about a picture of Napoleon because it resembled you.”
“Did you really admire me to that extent?” he said ironically.
“I did.”
“And now you dislike me,” he said with persistence.
“I have told you that I do not, Mr. Armour.”
“You endure me then?”
“No, I do not endure you;” and she laughed outright. “I am, as I said before, intensely grateful to you.”
“She has as many moods as there are hours in the day,” he soliloquized in internal discontent. “I wonder how I had better make my next attempt?”